


AU Month

by Lunaraen



Category: MCSM, Minecraft Story Mode
Genre: Alternate Universe, Multi, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 16:55:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 38,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15999431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunaraen/pseuds/Lunaraen
Summary: A collection of AU one-shots written for the mcsmAUmonth challenge on tumblr.





	1. Modern AU

It’s with a remarkable amount of self-restraint that Petra simply silences her phone rather than chucking it out the nearest window.

That’s a good thing, because while Petra’s been enjoying their fame maybe the most and it might be a bad sign that even she’s at her limit with the waterfall of attention, Jesse’s also what’s sitting between her and the nearest window. 

Jesse, who’s short enough for Axel to make garbage jokes about her height but just tall enough for her face to likely become a causality of any sort of phone throwing antics.

The nearby window is large and attached to a moving train, too, which means the rest of Jesse’s body would also probably be a causality if it happened to violently shatter and that their trip would meet a similar fate. It’s not Petra’s window, though, or her train, and even if Petra’s a lot richer than she used to be, as heroes of multiple worlds almost always tend to be, nobody wants to pay someone else for that kind of damage or ruin someone else’s property.

(Whether or not Petra is stronger than the strengthened glass is a question Jesse honestly doesn’t know and honestly doesn’t want to test.)

And Jesse’s pretty sure there aren’t many people that want to poke at Petra when she’s riled up with no immediate way to get out her pent up energy, but Lukas beats her to it.

“Crazy fan?”

Petra’s eye roll and half-shrug are equally loose, as well as equally too short to be anything but partly tense and not at all subtle.

It might be because of whoever’s bothering her, someone whose number Petra hasn’t blocked for some reason or a lot of someone’s at a terrible time, or because Lukas hadn’t even meant to take the train with them.

“It’s just my landlord.” Petra doesn’t speak much about her new apartment, or anything involving her new home, and neither of them know what to ask or how to reply to the thinly veiled barbs festering in the words. Petra’s been more ornery than she once was, but that’s not a tone she often uses with Jesse without apologizing, and she has a feeling that with Lukas here, he’s not going to be getting one.

Lukas hadn’t even meant to run in to Petra at all when she skipped their meeting for the umpteenth time.

He’d given Jesse the wrong journal to look through, back when he was catching up with her, Axel, and Olivia, and hadn’t caught back up to her until she and Petra were just about to step on the train. It was awkward, from how Petra hadn’t shown up to hang out with them again to how she was trying to rope Jesse into helping her find something she refused to be specific about, but Lukas hadn’t missed more than a beat before joining them. 

It might have been with a weak smile and a sudden bit of fidgeting, but Jesse isn’t complaining. 

She hasn’t been on the train since the railway’s opening, and while it might be one of the most impressive ones in terms of speed and distance, going through multiple large cities including hers, Axel’s, and Olivia’s, the view’s equally easy to appreciate.

Because as nice as it is to see miles and miles of Beacontown, homes and businesses alike designed in intricate, colorful, and oddly fitting ways and filled with people who, for the most part, seem just as colorful and pretty happy, it’s the stretch of forest that interests her most.

Even after years of development, working as hero-in-residence (even if for paper work’s sake she just as often has to go by mayor), helping the others find and stop other chaos or magic…

It’s the giant, interwoven patch of oaks and maples, their green leaves fluttering against each other in the breeze, that feels like home. She still knows by heart where her old tree house is, where the best place to find and even grow crops is, where Reuben liked to have her chase him around if they felt like walking to the lake.

(It’s a blessing that Lukas breaks her out of her thoughts as much as he shatters the silence, and it makes it easy to forgive the following curse of stilted, uncomfortable conversation.)

“How’s it been since the move?”

Petra’s fingers twitch once, twice, against her seat, almost fluid enough to pass as tapping them, before her expression goes smooth and her mouth settles in a thin line.

“Fine. How’s writing been?” Petra could probably sell someone a seat made of manure if she tried hard enough. Body language is easy, for her, putting on a mask as natural as breathing.

So it’s telling that she waits to bother with either, that she’s as ready to let her face betray her as her fingers.

“Fine.” Lukas’s voice goes as flat, likely because he noticed as much as Jesse did and that he’d probably like a straight forward answer from Petra for once about her new home.

And then Petra smiles, all teeth and no warmth, sardonic at best as her chuckle nearly morphs into a scoff.

“Really? Aren’t you running out of things to write about by now? It’s not like you ever go on any new adventures or do anything.” The conversation tips from slowly sinking to having hit three mines and an iceberg for good measure as Lukas frowns and looks away from Petra, his own half-laugh empty. It’s now that Jesse wishes she’d just tried to get into contact with Ivor to see how well his and Harper’s potion powered experiments were going, because inter-world travel and communication makes her head hurt but not as much as this.

Jesse’s body settles on not sighing while also not quite fully smiling, the attempt easily slipping into a grimace as she turns her head to look past Petra and out the window, to notice they’ve passed the end of the forest stretch.

“Hey, I can be creative. I just don’t need to throw myself into danger all the time for ideas.”

She’d love it if the two of them figured this out on their own, but somehow hurling herself out of the train and into the fields of wheat doesn’t seem like a good solution. Jesse wonders if they’d even notice, or if they’d tear each other apart before they could. Maybe if she could just quietly teleport to stand out in the bending sea of green, swaying wheat, watching the crops curve and dance in the wind and the horizon stretch to where it meets the fluffy swirls of cloud…

“Right. How creative do you get to just show up, smile, and sign pictures?”

Thank gods the train is so fast and the view so stunning.

It’s going to be a long ride.


	2. Actor AU

As far as card games go, canasta's not one of Aiden's favorites.

But he's always preferred six handed to four, it's a card game he's decently good at regardless of whether or not he likes it, and they have so many people on set at all times that the experimental nine handed game they're playing is more entertaining than expected. With this many people, getting creative is practically necessary.

The muffled yells and muted dialogue of what's actually going on a couple of thin walls away on camera create an odd but perfect background to go with the shuffling of cards and their own quiet chatter.

And the clinking of coins, because while no one here's really into serious gambling, pocket change doesn't seem like a big deal either.

Milo's grin is loose, toothy and sly as he glances at Nell over his hand.

It's a little over the top, but the dramatics are part of what makes it fun, and while Milo might not be used to acting, he fits in well enough with the colorful group they have.

"Let's see if you're as good at faking a poker face as you are an accent." Aiden doesn't blame him either, because the five he throws out onto the center of the closely crowded around table wouldn't be a worry if it was for anyone but Nell.

Throwing anything Nell's way is a bit like throwing to a black hole.

"No idea what you're talking about, dude." Nell's grin is just as cheesy as the thick and sudden accent, but she rolls with it well enough, slipping back out of it as she throws down another five and a wildcard and scoops up the pile of cards into her hand. The groans from everyone but her teammates don't seem to hinder the smiling any. "Good luck finding anyone as trustworthy as me."

"You're one to talk." It's one of her own team members who speaks up, Olivia raising an eyebrow even as she throws Nell a thumbs up. "Who gave Petra pot brownies?"

"Hey, she literally asked me for some." The cards click together and against the wood of the table as Nell straightens them out, fishing out a jack Olivia had tossed to Aiden in the beginning to finish off one canasta before she begins lying down more cards to start new ones.

Anyone not on Nell's team doesn't really play to win.

"Yeah, well, you weren't the one cleaning up the vomit." Axel grimaces as the others let that sink in, everyone offering up some sort of wince or groan. Even arbitrary team divisions can't keep them from feeling a little sympathetic about something like that, and Aiden's more than happy that he missed that day when he did.

"Isn't talking across the table against the rules?" Isa seems to feel the same way, if the way she neatly sets her cards between her hands says anything.

"Meh." Aiden shrugs, beginning to sort through his hand before realizing most of what's in it's already down on the table in front of Nell. "Not like we're in a tournament or anything."

And Isa cheats as much as her fiance does, which is nearly as much as Axel and Aiden do. It might be a good thing none of them are on the same team, even if it hasn't stopped Axel and Aiden from helping each other.

Aiden holds up two fingers behind Olivia's back twice, which works out well because apparently Axel was about to throw her a four. The ace is riskier, but she doesn't take it, and what catches Aiden's eye more is the new clink of coins and flash of silver across the table. Nell might be winning the game, which should get her the overall pot of money in the end if she keeps it up, but until then, it doesn't seem like she's winning in the money department.

"Hey, are you guys betting on how much we're cheating?"

Em shrugs, grinning as she pockets the quarters and looks up from her hand to him.

"It's not cheating if everybody knows about it, right? Besides, it's not like you're going to stop, so we might as well make a little something on it."

"Gotta keep it fun somehow."

"Yeah, because three teams totally doesn't make it interesting enough already." It makes the cards scarce and the rounds lightning fast, not helped by the way Nell seems to somehow be sucking up most of the wildcards.

(She's not allowed to deal anymore for a reason, but there's not much they can do about luck.)

There's a pause in nearly everything, from their small movements to the shifting of the cards, as things go quiet before the set erupts with laughter. From where they're sitting, they can't know for sure what just happened, but today's mostly been the filming for the PAMA scenes and the only place they've been having this kind of consistent trouble with is any scene involving Ivor's crush on Harper.

It's good to hear everybody laughing, though, and the muffled but frantic apologies coming from Ivor confirm the problem and just seem to make anyone near the cameras laugh harder.

(It gets even nicer when Aiden realizes Axel took that as his chance to repay the favor, judging by the new joker resting in his hand. Gill seems to be the only one who noticed, looking wholly unimpressed, but that's fine because they're on the same team and Aiden bets Maya's already done something similar for him.

Okay, maybe they all cheat, but it's fun.)

"That's another one for the blooper reel." Maya holds out her hand for a moment, sounding as smug as she looks while Gill gives her a dollar. They all bet as much as they cheat, though Aiden's pretty sure everyone in the studio has some kind of bet going for who's going to screw up what scene.

"Sounds like they're having fun."

"Harper is, at least." Olivia glances at the cards face up in front of Aiden before discarding a black three, smiling as she ignores his pout. "It's nice that she and Hadrian don't mind."

Not like Aiden envies Ivor; on screen romance can be really awkward even without the love interest's husband watching from the sidelines.

"Yeah, it's helped Ivor be less worried about it too. Keeps the whole thing from being too awkward." The side eye Gill gives Axel as he speaks only gets worse as Aiden puts his joker down on the canasta closest to being finished.

"Maybe dying of embarrassment would be in character for him, at this point." Isa taps her cards against the table, immediately playing the red three she draws before drawing again. It's a play that makes her teammates happy, and while everyone else at the table might be a bit bitter about it, the statement's hard to argue with.

So they lull, Milo probably biting back some kind of comment to keep it going as he plays and Nell not bothering at all with it.

"Go out?"

Nell's grin cuts through any confusion, the two cards in her hands being slipped back and forth between her fingers, and everyone else puts down their cards with varying amounts of energy as Olivia and Maya give her a thumbs up.

It's easy to smile at, even if having to hand over two dollars to each of the winners makes it a little less funny.


	3. Hogwarts AU

Soren is both the best and worst person to let toy with an invisibility cloak.

It's endearing, but Ivor's as attached to the idea of not being punished or docked house points for Soren's outlandish antics as he is Soren. It's not even truly the points he's worried about, but one of his dorm mates is a muggle-born well versed in minor explosives and itching powder and deeply interested in any magical equivalents, as well as maybe winning the house cup this year.

Magnus doesn't often make threats involving anything at least slightly mortifying and destructive that he doesn't follow up on, not when Soren's escapades have woken him up several times in the past month and he keeps bumping into an invisible Soren in their dorm.

(Ivor's been accused of many things, some true and others not quite, but he can hardly deny letting a Gryffindor into their common room when Magnus keeps stumbling into one at the foot or side of his bed. So he won't deny it, not to Magnus, though it helps that neither of them would seriously attempt to get the other in trouble, not after years of getting each other out of it and becoming friends, and it also helps that Magnus prefers to get direct revenge through pranks and threats. Even when pushed to his absolute limit, Ivor knows to expect blackmail and poorly flavored candy beans at worst.)

Ivor is also attached to not dying because of Soren, something Soren grasps with more difficulty than should be necessary regarding not getting his friends horribly murdered.

Soren is fascinated easily by most things, an endearing trait at the best and worst of times, but he has a particular interest in creatures not normally known to muggles or well known to even wizards. This does not bode or mix well with how Hogwarts happens to be right next to a large, sprawling, mystical but deadly forest filled with likewise magical and deadly things.

It's not a forest students are ever allowed into, save for the rare terrifying detention, but when it comes to Ivor and the others, they've left far fewer rules untouched than they’ve broken. Frankly, Ivor prefers survived broken rules to broken bones or other reasons for trips to the Hospital Wing.

While an invisibility cloak fools most human eyes, the same accuracy cannot be depended on for magical creatures, just as spell efficiency cannot be depended upon for magical creatures.

So they're walking into a forest filled with things ready to kill them in a cloak where no humans could find them but many monsters easily could, if not through their eyes then through other senses, with knowledge of spells and potions that may or may not do them any good.

Ivor does care dearly for Soren, but there are times he dearly regrets ever letting him know about his invisibility cloak. Unlike Gabriel and Magnus, content to be impressed with the cloak and concoct a couple of prank-related ideas for how it could be useful, Soren is as curious about it as Ellegaard and far more willing to test it out in less stable or safe areas.

And more willing to eagerly drag along his friends.

Not that they would have ever let Soren go alone, and Ivor knows that if Soren hadn't eagerly thrown the invisibility cloak over him and Magnus before slipping under it and ushering them out of the castle, he'd have chased behind Soren as closely anyhow. Soren tends to have that effect on him, dense as Soren may be to it.

The first few creatures they come across are harmless enough anyhow, either not noticing them or not caring, and the first ten minutes are just enough to let them slip into complacency, to relax under the cover of their cloak.

It's ten minutes spent under bright moonlight and among trees, swaying under either their own power or the wind, if not a little bit of both, Soren mumbling excitedly and only pausing to quietly write down the occasional note. It's ten minutes spent listening to Magnus groan and make small jokes that aren't meant to harm, borne of tiredness and fond exasperation, and it's almost enough to make Ivor think he's truly being too paranoid.

They haven't gone that far into the forest, after all, just deep enough within the border.

Karma, and perhaps life itself, chooses to rear its ugly head as soon as those first ten minutes are over, to snap and them and remind them of their place as foolish students up too late and out where they shouldn't be.

"No way."

A Runsepoor does not care for the cloak, for whether or not it can see through it, the three heads seem to have decent enough smelling to realize there are three foolish and maybe tasty trespassers nearby.

The scales glint in the moonlight, dark red in contrast to the similarly glinting ivory fangs, looking as sharp as the hissing sounds. It's the left head that spends the longest time tasting the air, its tongue flicking out even as it stops hissing, and the right head that snaps first, tugging its side of the serpentine body along.

It's a miracle and a blessing that the middle head doesn't move at all, it and the left head weighing down and distracting the right.

It figures, and Ivor's surprised this Runespoor hasn't already bitten off its right head, with how well it seems to get along with the other two. A blessing is a blessing, though, and now that it's no longer solely watching them, running is a good idea.

(To run when a magic creature still has its eyes and attention on them is to ensure a chase and likely their painful deaths.)

They stay quiet until they're out of the forest, the Runespoor's hissing turning to more heart-stopping snarls but growing fainter. When Soren speaks, his voice may be quiet, but there's an undeniable element of fascination and wonder that's both infuriating and relieving to hear after how close they came to staring down their deaths. He’s reciting from something, though Ivor has no idea what.

"The middle head is the dreamer, and supposedly capable of fabricating incredible visions for itself; a Runespoor can stay still for hours while it waits in thought."

Magnus's laugh is hollow, brittle as it is quiet, and his mutter similarly so.

"Great, it was daydreaming about how to kill us."

Ivor gives a small hum as Soren begins to scratch something else down on his notepad, the one filled with observations that he miraculously didn't drop. The look Magnus gives him doesn't escape Ivor's notice, sharp and accompanied by a raised eyebrow as well as illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the shadowy fabric, but it's not acted upon until they're within the castle walls, safe from brutal death and at risk of educational demise.

Soren is the only one to remain under the invisibility cloak when they enter the Slytherin common room, their dorm mates busy playing some sort of version of wizard's chess that involves more complexity and fighting between the pieces.

"How you holding up?" The question comes up right as they enter the room, Magnus brushing what little, shortly cut hair he has back as Soren bolts to where he stores his other notes beneath Ivor's mattress.

"I'm grateful to still be alive. And you?" Ivor might become a bit more formal when he's terrified and sleep deprived, but nothing he says is untrue and he makes sure his tone isn't sharp or tense.

Magnus's gaze only narrows, likely because he knows Ivor too well and sees through it all, before he jabs a finger at where Soren's huddled over a mass of scribbled on parchment.

"He's gotta really be a Ravenclaw; he's too loony to be anything else. Gryffindors are dumb, but they ain't that dumb."

"You don't have to be loony to be a Ravenclaw. I'm not."

It's a testament to how tired they both are that both Ivor and Magnus jolt, that neither of them noticed Ellegaard sitting on Magnus's bed closely to where Soren is or Gabriel leaning against the wall beside the door. It's perhaps more concerning that Soren doesn't react, either because he noticed before them or is too wrapped up currently in his own excitement and madness.

(Ivor's ego prefers the latter option.)

They really shouldn't be here at all, never mind this hour of the night, but neither should Soren, so Ivor has no room to either stand upon or be surprised.

Magnus isn't much surprised either, or at least recovers quickly from it, lips pulling back in a grin best described as smarmy as he rolls his eyes at her.

"Oh, you're loony alright. And bossy, and uppity, and too up-your-own-"

"The word you're looking for is smug." Ellegaard seems torn between being amused and unimpressed with his choices in description, looking just as unimpressed as he joins her on the bed.

"That ain't the word I'm looking for, but that one fits you too."

They're either about to fight or about to kiss and Ivor would really prefer if they'd wait until he's out of the room to do that. The issue here is that he also dearly needs sleep and his bed happens to be right beside Magnus's.

"Had a pleasant evening?"

Gabriel, as chased away as Ivor, moves from where Magnus and Ellegaard are busy doing their odd back and forth, his robes barely avoiding getting caught on the broomstick sticking out from under Otto's bed.

"As well as can be expected, given that we ran into a Runespoor."

After Soren's excitement, there's something cathartic in seeing Gabriel's eyes go wide as he reacts as visibly to the name as Ivor and Magnus must have to the creature.

"It didn't bite anyone, did it?"

"No one beyond itself. The heads started to fight with each other before it could get close enough to us." Ivor's smile is soft, for him, and it's a delight to see Gabriel's shoulders relax in response. Gabriel worries nearly as much as he does. "Please, we're not stupid."

It occurs to Ivor that now is the worst time to argue that angle, Magnus and Ellegaard bickering on Magnus's bed while Soren is eagerly shuffling through notes, all of them in a Slytherin dorm room when they should all be asleep and three of them are meant to be in different parts of the castle entirely.

Ivor's right where he should be and not bickering, though, as well as very tired and tremendously stubborn.

" _I'm_ not, at any rate."

"I see." Gabriel's tone is akin to an amused parent and Ivor is much too tired to be anywhere near ready to tolerate it, instead haphazardly throwing a pillow Magnus had earlier tossed on the floor in Gabriel's general direction.

"Oh, shut up." It's beyond satisfying to see it hit him in the face and even better to hear the charming little sound it makes.


	4. Order Swap AU

In the end, because there's no doubt _this_ is the end, Olivia doesn't think there was ever a big fight.

Not after Jesse left.

(Like Jesse had a choice, when Lukas pushed her away, yelled at her to leave and never bother them again, and the rest of them did nothing to help her. When they watched or turned away as she left, some of them never saying goodbyes and some swallowing whatever they'd had to say.

Olivia wants to believe she had something profound, something deep that could come close to explaining how sorry she was, how much Jesse meant to her and the others, how big a mistake the entire mess was, but over so many years, so many seasons, she's forgotten. It's another thing that's been shoved from her mind, refused and denied until it evaporated, leaving nothing but empty space and the desire to imagine all the ways it could've gone.)

Olivia's decent when it comes to tricking her own mind, which is a good thing. Otherwise, she's not sure how she'd have been able to live with herself.

She can almost believe the story now, if she tries hard enough and focuses on the happy people in her city. They all deserve a real hero, as much as they deserve a real engineer, and it's easier to be happy when she doesn't have to accept that they're all settling for her, whether they know it or not.

She’s grateful to have Radar to deal with the people, to handle them kindly when she herself is so tired and bitter. She’s pushed so many people away, disgusted with them and herself; it was no surprise when Petra followed Lukas, but...

But she and Axel should’ve been better, and that’s a feeling Olivia will never be able to rid herself of, no matter what she forgets or tries to insert as reality.

The command block may have been their last chance at defeating the Witherstorm on their own, but it wasn't what it was designed for. It wasn't even going to be released to the public at all. Olivia didn't pour hours, weeks, months, years of plotting and work into what could've been her greatest invention just for it to give everyone too much power, to put her citizens and followers at so much risk.

Absolute power like that only does one thing, even if it tries to shield itself behind pretty lies and flashy distractions.

So much for fighting fire with fire, for hunting down the person who tore them all apart and making sure he could never use that power again, for ripping that temptation from him forever.

(The idea of using a command block to destroy another one isn't a new idea either, even if the targeted monster changed.

Plans shift that way, though, and now they need Lukas.

Lukas, with his kind eyes and big ideas and nasty temper, his dreams of amazing builds and polished inventions and his fears of judgement from everyone around him, the friend who worked alongside her for so long and lashed out at her closest friend.

Who yelled and screamed, holding more power than he was ever meant to wield, destroyer of the Enderdragon and liar to all the world, who threw Jesse away and terrified his other friends into submission, whether he knew it or cared about it at all or not, the leader and the planner and the scapegoat for all the simmering rage and paralyzing fear stewing at Olivia's core.)

Their defenses mean nothing, _her_ defenses mean nothing, redstone lighting up and rockets, fire, and arrows doing nothing for her people but briefly distracting the many tentacled abomination.

And even that distraction means nothing, when one writhing tentacle can wipe out all the redstone, suck up all the materials and items, while the rest wrap around and pull screaming people towards one of the three giant waiting maws. The projectiles don't even pierce it's inky hide, bouncing off or vanishing entirely into its demanding abyss of a body.

Its eyes are purple spotlights, huge, entrancing, and horrifying as they're used to stir up confusion and seek out more prey.

Everything Olivia's worked to create, everyone she's grown to known, and it's all gone like that, torn to pieces and greedily devoured, everything she's truly earned taken as easily as her empty glory was granted.

This is a punishment meant for her, for her and her likewise untrustworthy friends, for them and all they did and never tried to do.

Olivia tries to struggle, to argue, to scream, when Ivor grabs her by the arm and tugs, but her anger's not meant for him. Her confusion and temper are not meant for him, easily extinguished by how desperate and scared he looks himself, looking to her as a hero and a key. There's nothing she can do now, not here, and the cowardice that kept her from speaking up when she should've so many years ago spurs her into grabbing their wrists, one Ivor's and one Ellegaard's, and running for the portal.

She can't save anyone else, but she can keep them alive another day, and she doesn't look back at what remains of her destroyed home or the roaring demon in the sky.

This is Jesse's beast, Jesse's storm, Jesse's rage and revenge incarnate. Jesse, who loved stupid puns and crappy jokes, who loved everything and anything deeply, so curious about so much and so willing to give everything a chance.

Jesse, who's doomed the world and everyone in it.

Jesse, who Olivia last saw leaving, the Endercrystals in tow and Reuben at her side. Who, when last seen by Ivor and Ellegaard, had little more than shabby clothes, filled with hatred and fury and painfully alone. Who unleashed a monster on Petra, a monster on an unsuspecting, innocent, crowd, with a failsafe that nearly exploded when it failed. Who abandoned the few people to escape in the nether, leaving them to rot, die, or somehow survive on their own.

(Their Jesse? Her Jesse? Her best friend? Lover of all, kind to a fault, put so many in danger and ran from her failure, her mistake that's doomed the world?

It's too late to ask where it went wrong, not when Olivia already knows the answer.)

She feels numb, in the mine cart, fingers trembling and heavy, the fear pounding in her chest unbothered by the sea of lava beneath or the distant, echoing moans of monsters here. It's been so long since she used this system, but it's a small condolence that at least one thing she built still works. It will take them to safety, to her old home, to find her old friend.

Lukas was the closest thing they had to a leader, after Jesse, before he disappeared.

Regardless of her rage and anger, of whatever Ivor and Ellegaard have in mind for themselves and their own friends, she has a feeling this will loop right back to Lukas. Olivia was too weak and failed, but Lukas, despite everything, knows the command block better than she could hope to.

Ivor looks still where he sits in the front, stagnant despite the jolting of his cart or the wobble of squeaky wheels on rusted track, and there's something to be said for how he relaxes, just a bit, when Ellegaard rests her hand on his shoulder. They're in for so much, been through too much already, but in Olivia's experience, having good friends always did seem to help.

She just hopes Lukas doesn't end up breaking them the same way.

They deserve their chance to be happy, to be as innocent as they still can be for a while longer, if they can survive this.


	5. Hybrids AU

Axel's actually a pretty peaceful guy, for all his jokes about what he could do to someone with his 'bear hands'.

(What? If he's going to have them, huge furry paws to go with his sharp teeth and fluffy ears, he might as well get some fun out of it, and it's a nice animal pun instead of one of the many insults he's used to hearing.)

So maybe it's just the stress of the end of the world as they know it, or the fear of losing more of his friends, but there's just something off about how he wants to use his claws, black and long and more than sharp enough, to beat and slice Lukas to a bloody pulp.

Lukas, two-faced coward that he is, palling around with his friends like he didn't abandon Petra or didn't spend years and years letting them be harassed and picked on by his cronies.

Axel wants to smack that grin off his face and make Lukas feel as bad as he made them feel.

It almost happens the first night, the five of them huddled around a dying fire in a tiny emergency shack made of nothing but dirt and mud. The two of them fight and Axel almost lunges, almost gives into the desire to slice his face off or bite his neck. He just roars instead, angry and grieving and vocally unhappy about it all, but it might as well be the same thing, for how much it scares his friends and gets Lukas to freeze up.

There's a couple seconds where nobody says anything, where the pride at getting Lukas to shut up and go still like the coward he is turns to awkward shame, and Axel doesn't say or do anything else before he leaves through their rushed, slightly misshapen door.

Axel ends up spending the night outside their hut, sulking while he watches out for monsters, and that's fine by him. He's always been more awake at night, even if he's especially exhausted today and maybe just wants to sleep it all away. It gives him time to forage the things he can, stuff he can give to Jesse, Olivia, and Reuben in a couple of hours to make up for the fighting and the scare.

(He should be in there, warming them up and trying to lighten the mood.)

Jesse's just trying to keep everyone alive, and there's something a little haunting about the way she and Olivia looked at him, wide-eyed and nearly huddled together, Reuben hiding behind them entirely, while Lukas backed himself into a corner.

Scaring Lukas doesn't bother him; he can at least be satisfied about startling him, even if something still bugs him about Lukas being here at all, about not having been chased off. It's easy to say that it's because he doesn't trust Lukas, because he doesn't. If any of them are in trouble, the only thing he knows he can rely on is Lukas ditching them to save his own skin.

(There's something about Lukas in general that bugs him, the shifty way he moves and how he carries himself. It's not inherently slimy, but it gives off a weird vibe Axel can't explain, one that leaves him feeling ruffled and on edge.)

Scaring his friends bothers him a whole lot more.

Axel wants to blame it on Lukas again, that his friends wouldn't care about him being a little more animalistic if there wasn't some snobby "normal" person with them. The problem with that is that he'd never roar or snap at them like he just did with Lukas, and he knows they'd never accept him acting that way either.

(He can hear Olivia lecturing him already about how he's better than this, better than giving into instincts.)

The next morning is hesitant and uncomfortable and Axel means he's sorry when he apologizes but it doesn't sound that way and Lukas doesn't have much to say to it. Everything about him still bothers Axel, how much he jokes with Jesse and how comfortable she and Olivia are with him when it's obvious to Axel that he's nothing but bad news, but they have more important things to worry about.

Axel doesn't snarl or bark at him again, as tempted as he gets a few times after, and things get better when Petra shows up, smiling.

(The smile is human and off, excused by fear and exhaustion, and the way her tail and ears droop more than normal is similarly brushed off. It leaves Axel feeling awful too, but that’s kind of been his mood since the world decided to flip on its head.)

It's not until they start looking for Soren that it all makes sense.

The secret path is unexpected but nice, and the drop itself into it gentle enough. It helps that Lukas cushions Axel's fall, but it doesn't seem to be doing Lukas much good, the softer than expected landing clashing with the way Lukas starts to thrash, lying against the cold stone, and Axel can't get up fast enough.

Lukas _yowls_. There's nothing remotely human about the sound, sharp and even more distorted as it echoes through the giant tunnel and sends more bats fleeing to safety, though Axel doesn't realize that until a few moments later. He's a little too busy scrambling off of him and trying to apologize. He doesn't like Lukas, but he doesn't want to crush the guy. Even the idea of seriously hurting him and getting him to back off isn't as appealing as it was the first night, and Axel would never actually try to harm somebody.

The guilty feeling doesn't get any better when Petra nudges Axel aside, moving past him and kneeling at Lukas's side. Everyone else seems just as startled and confused as Axel, and then it gets worse when Petra takes off Lukas's wool hat.

(There are ears there. Two small, fluffy ears, spotted and... well, one's ripped a bit, torn a little along the edge. There's already some blood welling, red dots growing before staining the fur while Petra takes out a few small hair clips that must have been holding the ears down. It's hard not to wince, one of Axel's own ears twitching at the thought; the clips alone looking painful.)

Lukas doesn’t relax until he twitches onto his side and his baggy pants shift, revealing and letting him straighten out a tail that’s as bent out of shape as his ears, if less bloody.

Huh.

Axel knew something was up with him.

(There's a foggy memory that pops out, tugs itself out of the cobwebs of time and being half forgotten, from when he was confused and curious and wanted to learn more about himself.

The bear that he's closest to, good at climbing with a shaggy black coat and big claws that make hanging from trees easy, hates big cats. Fights with them and loses enough to the point of being terrified of some of the noises they mimic and chasing them off as soon as they can.

That explains a lot too.)

He'd feel better about being right if he wasn't busy feeling crappy.


	6. Sky AU

PAMA is a monstrous device, a demonic creature somewhere between what her mother was rumored to be and who Aiden really was. It's a shame it exists at all, especially in such an interesting world, the ground a mix of colorfully solid rock and bright, loose sand that's as soft as dirt but nowhere near as reliable.

Everything is ordered so meticulously, everything restricted and controlled, the people with no free will and living to serve a hoarding master.

(She's one of those people now, the pain hotter than she imagined lava itself could ever be, her limbs heavy and her mind growing dull as PAMA makes of it what it wants, takes the information it desires and blocks out her ability to move her own body.)

And there's not much that it doesn't seem to want from her, extracting and dissecting everything she knows about the portal network, everything they've learned about all the different worlds they've been to, everything she knows about home. Jesse's taken every step to learn what she can about all the worlds they go to, so fascinated by how other people live and the way things are different in each and every one, and that interest is being used against her.

(For all the things she's gotten into trouble for and been discouraged from, wanting to learn more, collecting new information whenever possible, has never been one, even when she was home and they had so little to share so freely.

Home.

A world with inexperienced people unable and unused to using or having free reign over the realm of resources now available to them, people unused to crafting or building and good at following orders. The lakes don't seem to interest PAMA much, certainly not as much as they amazed Jesse, but it does take an interest in the mountains and fields.

It's at this point that Jesse fully realizes that these people aren't obedient out of any sort of choice; the urge to claw out the chip at the back of her head could never be stronger, and her fingers don't so much as twitch.

PAMA takes a special interest in this world, her world, in its resources, from the untapped ores to its obedient and unsuspecting creatures, and Jesse's attempts to hide all she knows from it don't even seem to register with the dominant force picking through her brain.

The searing pain behind her temples just burns harder, stings more, and the other trapped voices just claw harder, dragging her and Lukas down more into the chaos.

It might be because they’re new, new when there hasn’t been anything new in so long, or because everyone’s so desperate and scared, but Jesse can feel herself drowning all the same.)

It's a clever monster, a terrible entity as awe inspiring as it is deceptively friendly, and the scholar and diplomat in Jesse are as intrigued in the information PAMA has stored away, a fountain of knowledge, as the fighter in her wants to scream and wrestle her control back.

Jesse's always hated being controlled and restricted, commanded to the point where giving in feels easier, kinder, than fighting back.

She wants to rely on the safety of Axel and Olivia being able to save them, still in hiding with the mystery person, but her current host has an unexpected interest in their unknown helper that guarantees Axel and Olivia will be hunted down soon, even if they're currently evading PAMA's forces.

Another memory gets pulled out, twisted and turned. It's more recent and less general, about her fight with Petra.

It's not something she'd expect a micromanaging being to care much about, but then she sees how _useful_ it could be, as PAMA analyzes how angry they both were, how much it hurt Jesse, and she dimly remembers Petra's still there, Petra's not hurt yet but she's not running away like she should either.

(How can she, when she's being held into place, the people at her sides steadfast and as ready to chip her as they were to forcibly recruit Lukas and Jesse?

Petra could break their bones and they wouldn't move, forced by PAMA to stay firm and do their duties even through the pain, pushed past their own limits and desires to fulfill a purpose. It's a statement that applies to Jesse and Lukas now, too, and Jesse already knows better than to think PAMA won't use that to its full advantage.)

Oh no.

The fight had been cruel and nasty, sparked on both sides by equal unease and dissatisfaction, Petra tired and desperate to just go home while Jesse missed her own world and hated how Petra blamed them all for not getting home sooner.

(There's so much they both seem to admire in each other, but there are times Jesse doesn't agree with Petra's more aggressive solutions or how she lashes out at people, and Petra had made it plenty clear she wasn't sure if Jesse should've been with them at all, handy with a sword but having lived her life a princess who really had nothing she needed to worry for or work towards.)

"It's like what you said to Jesse- you look like you're out of your depth."

There's something about the word that bothers PAMA, sends the dulled screaming and constant buzz into a louder cacophony of noise. If it hurts PAMA near as much as it hurts Jesse, it doesn't let on, the plastic grin on her face only stretching wider as she moves closer to her.

"Be useful for a change."

The words hurt to hear the first time, and being the one to say them doesn't lessen the pain. What's worse is how Petra falters, her mouth opening but no words coming out. They both know this isn't the time for an apology or to talk it out, and Jesse already knows there's no way for her to control her own mouth, sure as she can't control her legs as she takes another step towards her, Lukas doing the same thing from Petra and Ivor's other side.

The lack of focus on manipulating or messing with Ivor, beyond the obvious of pitting people he cares about against him while he has few means of defending himself, does have the benefit of him going on the attack, grabbing Petra's arm as he moves to the edge of the platform and directs his attention to the large glowing sheet of glass.

"I know one thing; that I know nothing." She's not sure how a paradox is supposed to help, though.

The confusion transfers well, from Jesse to PAMA to the rest of the chipped creatures, though it doesn't last long before it's replaced by a numbing, bone chilling static that has Jesse trying to retreat more into her own head.


	7. Order Villains AU

Aiden wonders, a bit, if he isn't destined to play the villain, if it shouldn't be him that everyone's preparing to fend off and defeat.

(Defeat means death where he's from, but here's a soft world, a gentle one unused to killing or waste, where jail cells aren't simply holding cells for until the next rematch or surrender.)

It would certainly be easier to win if it was just him.

He moves his sword, tilting the sharpened blade a bit to the side and letting the sunlight glint off of the edge. Most things in the city seem to glint in daylight, with how much of it is made of iron and gold, shiny and interestingly far less valuable than dirt to the people here.

Aiden's hand goes still, after a moment, the sword quickly righting itself back to being more level as the mattress behind him shifts and squeaks quietly.

A glance behind him proves that Maya and Gill are fine, neither of them likely fully sleeping so much as resting, and he lets out a quiet sigh he didn't realize he was holding.

The hospitality here is unexpected and nice, but it's hard to not feel like it's a front, a cover for something crueler.

Aiden doubts anyone here has that kind of behavior in them, though. He's just paranoid and tired, his legs sore and his head beginning to ache. Half of him never wants to move again and the other half wants to leap to his feet and run forever, and the unhappy compromise so far has been him sitting on the edge of the bed, ready to lunge if he has to.

Maybe it would just be easier if the Order of the Stone wasn't involved, if there was a different sort of villain altogether to go against.

It doesn't have to be Aiden, but he'd prefer even himself to them.

There's a history to the name that the Founder doesn't know, one her city hasn't had to live with or face yet, and it's the best beauty and the worst weakness of such an innocent world.

(The guards are working to prepare for it right now, for what they've been told to expect, but how can they ever be ready when they've never had to kill?)

It seems too good to be true, how happy and peaceful everyone is here to coexist and work together without threat of war or infighting, and the price of not building or crafting seems so low. He's seen real dictators, in his world, and their leader's not one of them.

Aiden is biased, however, and supposes that his world simply sets the bar too low.

The Order of the Stone weren't exactly dictators, to be fair. Not initially.

Hurting people wasn't always the target so much as it was the inevitable result, a side effect of the Order taking what they wanted and razing the rest to the ground.

And for the most part, people took it. Their world's always been competitive, always been about honor and glory and rising to the top for as long as possible until someone better comes along, but it's hard to one-up the slaying of a dragon.

It helps that their world doesn't have any other dragons, none known to the glory seekers and those just trying to get by, and that even a wither is seen as more manageable.

Unless said wither also happens to have been imbued with the raw energy of a command block, but that came later, much later.

A city could hardly be the most innovative, built by and filled with the brightest engineers and led by the greatest inventor of all time, if it didn't have enough redstone, if its leader and creator wasn't taken seriously and didn't deal with challenges.

A city made by and for griefers only defeats itself if it doesn't ever try to expand, if it's predictable and has boundaries, has guaranteed safe places for people. It may not be all that large, but it's chaotic, unpredictable at best, and the only really safe person is the one in charge, the one who's earned that right and fights to keep it.

Aiden wasn't around for when it started, and it's been going for far longer than he's been alive, but that's how it was explained to him and it seemed to make sense to everyone else.

(He doesn't know what the world was like before the Order of the Stone, if it was always this way for them and they just carried on what they learned or if they set a new standard while the rest of the world followed suit. He doesn't think there's anyone who lived before then who's still alive, and if they are, they weren't in his little backwater town.)

He'd had some hope that the new Order would be better, when Jesse saved the world, but it hadn't lasted long. It almost seemed like they wanted to make up for what they had lost, felt they all rightly deserved the command block they'd had to destroy. Endless resources, endless power, and it slipped through their fingers in one violent motion.

It's fitting that the nicest thing Jesse's done for another person was violent too, justified and needed as the blow was.

It's cruel to assume that, when the others must be part of the Order for more than just the fame, when Jesse's only hardened since losing the piglet that followed the group around, but it's the nicest thing he's _seen_ Jesse do for anyone.

And Aiden was only there because Lukas had found him, had found him holed up in a cave with Maya and Gill, the three of them huddled around a fire that was more smoke that flame. The most they'd had, in terms of defense, was a gnarled, sharpened branch, broken off from some tree by the same force that had hurled them towards the ground, sore and used.

They had gone to help Jesse, to be the aid Lukas knew they could be and the distraction they ultimately needed to be, because of Lukas. They helped people who had nothing for them, who had pushed them down and prodded constantly for weaknesses, for him.

Lukas is with them, the Order.

Aiden has no idea why Lukas is with them.

(That's a lie, and a bad one at that. Lukas has always been the most ambitious, the leader and the opportunist. He's always looked for the best for them, but they aren't his only friends, not anymore. A cynical, bitter part of Aiden wonders if Lukas isn't just looking for what's best for himself and taking it, if he wasn't just using the three of them until something bigger, better, and with more to offer him came along.

Petra's an opportunist too, and someone Lukas has already treated like a friend; it's easier for Aiden's more hopeful side to blame her for getting Lukas in too deep, for convincing him or lying to him.)

But he is, he's picked a side and it's Jesse's, and if he hadn't fought with them at the portal Aiden wouldn't believe it.

(The thin slice along his cheek, scabbed up, was given to him by Lukas. It was a gentle warning, as far as these things go, as far as fighting tends to, and it makes his blood boil and his core plummet because of all the people he'll fight, because it's not something he wants to do but something he knows he'll have to, he really doesn't want Lukas to be one of them.)

A fight to the death is how they do things. He doesn't count on Jesse caring about whatever new, kinder customs they have in this world, not when it stops serving the Order and keeps them from stealing what keeps the city alive.

They're lucky they ran into Ivor when they did, heavily wounded and likely not meant to be left alive, or the Blaze Rods never would have known where to go or who to warn.

The Founder believes in diplomacy and reprimanding people as punishment and having people learn from their mistakes and reform from their crimes. All very nice things, but not what they know. To challenge someone without following through, without ending the fight, is the highest insult he can imagine, and it's not one he can see Jesse take lying down. Not when the Blaze Rods already did that to the Order, started a combat and rushed through the portal in the middle, when it became clear they had no chance of winning.

He has no idea what Petra dragged Lukas into or how any of them are going to get out of it.


	8. Demigods AU

Adventures don't always end as well as they could, the return home bitter or lacking and the trip as treacherous as the combat or challenges.

Sometimes the adventure goes well, the trip is nice, and they all return to the temple only to discover they won't be getting the rest or sleep they wanted for a few more hours.

It's bound to happen every now and then, thanks to Harper and Ivor's experiments and the general chaos that likes to follow at their heels, and whether from their world or another, they've already had to deal with half a dozen creatures bent on giving them more trouble than their adventure already had.

Less than desirable people looking for trouble or trying to take them off guard had gotten in twice before, though never the same people and quickly dealt with, and once they'd had such a terrible storm that Lukas spent the next couple of days up to his ears in repairs.

This, though, is the first time Petra can remember coming back and dealing with gods who decided to let themselves in.

(It is also, unsurprisingly, the first time she gets into a shouting match with one.)

Though there's no damage, not physically, to take care of afterwards, for either their home or their bodies, and no intruders still here, their loot and collected samples left untouched, Petra can safely say that it's the foulest surprise they've had yet after an already long day.

Along with their accomplishments being at least partly chalked up to who their parents are, which is infuriating in its own right.

"I want to kill them." She can also safely say that her pacing might wear a path through the wooden floor at this rate, but she doesn't care and supposedly it beats her slicing one of her training dummies beyond repair.

"You can't kill gods." Lukas pauses, glancing at Ivor as his voice softens. "Can you?"

"I'm certainly willing to try." Petra's not sure if it's a good or bad thing that Ivor's on her side, that he doesn't need any more convincing when half the time he's a decent voice of reason, but she'll take the support she can get. The chuckle he gives is dark and humorless, his frown slipping as he strokes his chin. "I imagine there's at least a way to banish them from the mortal plane or send them back to wherever they normally are."

"That. We're doing that."

Jesse's at her side, not that Petra's sure when that happened, her hand on the side of her arm. Her voice is as soft and gentle as her grip.

"Petra..."

"So you like having them here? Having them visit us now that we're rich and famous and _important_ when they didn't care at all before?" It might be what she says, or it might be that she yanks her arm away from Jesse, but the hurt look and hunched shoulders get Petra to rub at one of her own temples as she glances around the room, the venom leaving her voice as easily as the tension slips from her shoulders. "Well, unless you guys saw them before now. This is all new to me."

"I thought my dad was dead." Axel doesn't look up at her, his tone somewhere between nonchalant and halfheartedly joking. "Or a deadbeat."

"I guess they all are." Lukas doesn't meet her eyes either, taking his goggles off so he can play with them in his lap.

"They aren't even sorry." Petra's not mad at any of them, not her friends who are just as hurt and wronged; this is more venting for the sake of getting it out, trying to get rid of some of what's bubbling up her throat. "They don't think anything they did was wrong, or that it's a bad thing they left us all alone when they could've come by whenever. They're _gods_ ; nothing was stopping them."

They'd been surprised to not be welcomed with open arms, like they weren't trespassers and total strangers.

"Maybe they'd already been banished or locked away and they just didn't want to say so. It would probably be embarrassing for a god." Jesse doesn't sound like she believes her own words, sitting beside Lukas as she massages the bridge of her nose, her smile tired and stretched thin.

"Wouldn't you be embarrassed about abandoning your kid for their whole life?"

Lukas rakes his hair back with a hand, the circles under his eyes dark and prominent as he huffs.

"Okay, but even if we did try to attack them, how do you think that would go? How do you think egotistical, ancient, all-powerful gods would take us trying to banish them, or even kill them?"

"They're likely not all-powerful." Ivor's voice is softer, now, and the sympathetic grimace he gives as they all look at him has none of the bite or sting she'd expect. "In all seriousness, Lukas has a point. They certainly know who you five are, and even if they know nothing personally about you, they know that you're heroes and that three of you have incredibly populated and famous cities."

Lukas and Petra might not have so many people looking directly to them for guidance, but they'd never let an innocent person get hurt, not because of them.

It's underhanded and sneaky and just what she'd expect from a god.

"...they wouldn't have to fight us at all to get us to stop."

"Do you know anything about them?" Olivia hasn't stopped keeping an eye on the windows, either wanting to crawl out of them herself or expecting to see someone, something, watching.

Petra can't blame her for either.

"They were taken more seriously, before the Order of the Stone. Not much, but I recognize them- their names and appearances, at any rate. I can't say I've ever been lucky enough to see a god before now."

"And as much as Hadrian liked the sound of it, none of us were close to actually being gods either. Not outside of our delusions, anyway." The door leading to what's either a relaxed courtyard or lavish backyard closes quietly behind Harper, who didn't go with them but looks as tired. Her tone is dry, already half a chuckle. "You all got a big enough scare once they were settled; imagine being here when they decided to pop in."

"They didn't do anything, did they?" Harper looks as untouched as the temple,  but Petra still feels as concerned as Ivor sounds, coming to a halt as she stops pacing.

"I don't think they even realized I was there at first." Harper sits on the closest couch, Axel shifting from where he'd been sprawled out on it to give her room. "If you stand your ground and keep letting them know how you feel, I'm sure they'll get the hint. And if they don't... you shouldn't have to tolerate them out of fear. We'll figure something out, something that doesn't risk so many people."

"They can't hurt anyone if they're dead."

Petra knows how she sounds, single-minded and dogged, but that's how you deal with monsters. These aren't beings they can lock up, or reason with, or fight fairly. They're a threat, worse than any creature, not looking out for anything more than themselves and their thirst for more power and fame.

And, well, killing things to protect her friends has worked so far.

"...they've never done anything like this before. I don't think they got the reaction they were looking for." Olivia holds onto her shoulder just long enough to give it a small squeeze. "They might not come back."

It's a nice thought.

Petra's mom taught her legends, when she was small and had someone to run to at night, when she had someone to tell her stories of heroes and monsters and could play with a wooden sword out of fun rather than necessity. She remembers being told about incredible feats, about misunderstood creatures and incredible gods who could do anything, about heroes and incredible friends in incredible places, and her mom had always treated it like she believed it was real.

All that power, all the abilities and magic in the world, and none of it was used when it was needed, in a mining trip gone so, so wrong.

(All the shiny promises in all the worlds won't make Petra forget the blood splatters, the way the cave had trembled before reeking of blood and flesh, how she'd felt numb even as she ran all the way out of the caverns, stumbling over her own feet. How she'd run into the river where the monsters wouldn't go, where they'd be slow if they made it or burn before they could, where she'd tried to wash the blood off her hands, off her face and clothes. She tasted blood that day, though she didn't know if it was from biting her own tongue to cut off her screams or from something far worse.

What kind of god couldn't handle a creeper nest, couldn't save one person? What kind of parent would let the most important person in her world die like that, a person who must have been just as important to him? No one deserved to die like that. No child deserved to be left to fend for themselves in a world of strangers and nightmares.)


	9. Witherstorm Connection AU

There is something terrifying and fascinating to learning about the world around him, from the customs to who Gabriel even is, from the tired, familiar strangers around him.

He's glad to learn it's not always so chaotic, not in a world threatening way. They handle it well though, and he's relieved as well as oddly proud.

They deal with the screams better than he ever could. He thinks so, at least, but... to be such a great hero, he'd have to have been able to handle it before. He can't imagine taking down a dragon without being used to the shrieks, the tugging in his mind and the pleas of other people

(People who don't seem used to it either, but they're all so tired and Gabriel wants to remember but he can't.

There isn't anyone confused like him, not that he can tell from the sea of voices and waves of emotion, but worse than the wails are the silent ones. They're there, present, but they're not loud. All Gabriel can feel is a numbed pain, a constant, draining ache that makes him want to retreat more than he can, and that scares him more than the screams ever could.)

There is something to him being Gabriel that interests them, that makes them swarm and pull at his mind before rejecting him and pushing him away again, leaving his mind even more taxed and muddled while his body struggles to not collapse.

He is not the Gabriel they need, not the hero they want.

His mind gives a lurch to the thought, and he's not sure if it's the buried memories of who he was or the buried voices of those desperate for a savior.

Who is he, who can he be, who can he help when he doesn't even know himself?

So he tries to learn as soon as he can, though it is admittedly a challenge when dealing with a brusque maybe-king maybe-friend, Magnus busy mourning someone Gabriel can't recall.

"...how do you not let it bother you?" The words are clunky and short, Gabriel's fingers tugging on each other as Magnus's brow furrows. "The shrieking."

The snort he gets is not the answer he's looking for, the sharper tone a sign he's misread something again.

"'Course it bothers me. Nothing we can do right now but help Jesse stop that thing, though." Magnus watches him with narrowed eyes for a moment before his gaze softens, his voice similarly gentle. It's odd to hear from such a rough voice, and oddly right. "...it's not your fault, okay?"

Gabriel blinks, whatever he'd had to say to that dying on his tongue and fading away to where ever the rest of his memories are.

"Why would it be?"

Magnus watches him, his expression not changing while the look in his eyes shift, turning almost desperate before he shrugs, looking away as he gives a grin as out of place as the reassurance and takes another drag from his cigarette.

"...never mind."

He gets the terrible feeling he and Magnus are each missing something crucial, though the shared misunderstanding doesn't leave him particularly comforted.

Gabriel watches him make smoke rings, the thin wisps hovering towards the cave roof before disappearing altogether, preferring the visual to the one his mind and the minds of others would rather show him, until Soren begins yelling outside with someone he hasn't been introduced to yet.

(Hearing the voice is frustratingly familiar, and leaves a chill he can't explain up his spine.)

Then Magnus leaves to throw himself in danger and Gabriel does the same, albeit going the opposite way, where he's theoretically at much less risk.

When they stop at the swamp, Gabriel has begun to suspect that their secret to success is not having to deal with it so heavily. They hardly react to the random spikes of fear and pain, never mind the waves of people yelling from anger and pain, as if they don't notice it at all. Perhaps they're just that trained, that prepared, that much more capable and able to put it behind them in order to do what they must...

But perhaps not.

Even when Gabriel’s right beside them, they don't respond to his prodding, his attempts to speak to the void. He can't even find them, can't trace their voices or actions to any that he feels skimming through the back of his mind constantly.

(And Jesse seems to care so deeply about everything that he can't imagine all the palpable pain and suffering not having at least some kind of effect, team leader or not.)

By the time they return, one of the few things he is certain of is that they don't hear or feel any of it, not beyond what's physically before or around them.

By the time his memories return, hitting him with a force that sends him retching on his knees, fingers digging into the grass while Magnus says nothing and keeps a hand on his back, he feels the same grim acceptance towards the confirmation that he's a fraud as he does to the truth of not having had these voices, these people, enter his mind ever before.

It's a symptom from being taken by the Witherstorm, though unlike his amnesia and sickening complexion, it's one that doesn't leave.

And now that Gabriel has remembered who he is, the people who he failed, the ones able to prod at his thoughts and fears, claw at him, now no longer in imminent danger but still confused and hurt and so very angry at how he lied and all he couldn't do.

His apologies come out in mangled sobs, and he's not sure if they're more for Magnus or all the people he couldn't save, people he abandoned and people that Jesse had to help instead.

It makes leaving after Jesse and the others have settled easy, the wandering taking him far from the anger and fury and giving him a chance to learn how to block it all out, how to keep his mind to himself for his own sake.

It doesn't fully dull the accusations, though, not even when he comes the closest he can to how it was before.

Gabriel would never expect it to be useful to him, however, not beyond being a constant reminder of his failings and to keep his ego in check while he helps whoever he comes across. He never calls himself a hero and brushes off any insistences of such, though he never gets many from the people with the same ability, the same knowledge.

At best they thank him, and at worst the anger has been replaced by pity.

But it does come in handy, when he strays closer to the Order's new temple, their new home, where his old one once resided deep in the forest before being destroyed. There is so much he still doesn't know, things he has chosen not to learn but is sure other people have experimented with, but he knows for sure the nearby presence is strong.

There is a fury there, blistering and constant but not aimed at him, and for a cowardly moment he considers leaving it to Jesse, who has accomplished so much already.

The moment passes like any other, and Gabriel shakes his head before steeling himself and pushing a thick, leafy branch aside as he begins to follow a path towards a city he hasn't seen in months. Jesse might have it covered, but the least he owes them all is a warning, just to be safe.

(The least he owes Ivor especially, an old friend he misses and is terrified of seeing in equal parts.)

This Blaze Rod business can't be any good.


	10. Benders AU

Harper has never been much of a fan for elemental associations.

They can be interesting in their own right, reveal a lot about whoever's perpetuating them or the people they've met, but it isn't something she's ever put any stock in and it's not something she's fond of having regularly enforced around her.

To put it another way, it's a real pain for an engineer to constantly hear and be taught that fire destroys.

It can, but so can any other element, and fire is useful in every world she's ever been to for heat and energy, sustaining and advancing life.

Even if she wasn't a firebender she'd be annoyed with it.

It's not a fixation in every world, that fire is inherently destructive or worse, but it is one in her own and for every world that seems to appreciate fire or value it even more over the other elements, there's five more that demonize it.

(Harper's not interested in worship either, not for herself or for one element above the rest. Each element is uniquely useful but equally valuable.)

It's part of why Hadrian was ever interested in her in the first place; he later told her himself that he'd never have bothered becoming friends with her if she wasn't such an oddity, hadn't fascinated him. Builders and engineers alike tend to be earthbenders, in their world, with the occasional waterbender or airbender, but firebenders were never really seen as going beyond blacksmiths, if they ever got to that point in the first place.

Harper started in the forge, but she'd had no problem wanting to go further, wanting to design and create what she would go on to smelt or craft.

Frankly, she doesn't see why there weren't more firebending engineers before her; working with redstone has the same energy, the same precision, as shaping flames or influencing temperature.

Not a week after their talk, he'd tried to impale her with metal spikes

(Hadrian wasn't the one controlling or shaping  the metal, of course; that had been one of the gladiators, the glorified minions he'd kidnapped and convinced were lucky.

Hadrian, for all his interest in the elements and the finesse of bending, is not a bender.

It might be all that allows her to get away with stealing his most prized possession and sealing their world off, using the key to better a different world.)

However, for all her hatred of the stereotypes and the assumptions, there are times she can't help but be reminded of it or wish she could shape anything else instead. Fire steals, greedily absorbs its energy from whatever source it can to maintain itself, and when she takes the redstone heart, the key to anyone entering or exiting their world, the key to Hadrian and Mevia's kidnappings, she seals all the innocent people away with the twisted people that used to be her friends.

She leaves them in a world where they're forced to experience respawn again and again whether they like it or not, forced to go through a perversion of the games that had been so fun and a perversion of one of her world's basic functions. They will not know respawn as the dependable comfort it had always been for her; it will be their nightmare, their endless punishment for doing nothing wrong.

Harper doesn't even try to get them out; she takes the key and uses it in a new world to help people, to ease her guilt and better her own life and standing.

And then that goes horribly, horribly wrong and all of it is lost in a fraction of the time it was earned.

She's not sure she should be surprised.

It's her dearest creation turning her own friends and everything she has grown to relearn, to reacclimate to, against her, using the heart she stole to do it.

And when she learns, it's too late to go straight to said creation, to melt its metal frame or burn the redstone to ash, and at that point she's already lost. The only way she'll fight is to flee, because she won't burn the husks of people that used to be her friends, people still trapped somewhere inside their bodies while they shamble after her like monsters.

The animals and monsters she's more ready to kill, but PAMA knows she's soft, knows her weakness, and even she can't take down an army of monsters, not when they don't feel pain or fear fire.

(Harper knows they likely still do both, but her creation doesn't care, makes them push through their fear and endure all the pain, and it's enough to make her pity them all. Nothing deserves that, not her closest friends and not the most hated of the undead.)

She tries, spends years and years and too many seasons salvaging what she can and trying to find some way through it all, past all the patrols and hunting groups so she can undo her latest mistake.

Seasons and seasons all to herself, wondering if the people she used to know are dying slowly, losing themselves bit by bit, or if they're still as aware now as they were at first. Harper's not sure which is worse.

A number of her friends were waterbenders, and she feels worst for them.

Crown Mesa has always been a dry climate, named after the spanning mesa it rests on and the ones surrounding it, but there were always rivers. Now there's almost no moisture, the air as dry as the cracked ground.

It hasn't rained in so long.

Ultimately, it shouldn't be much of a shock that it takes outside help to get anywhere at all, and Harper's almost forgotten what it's like to exist among people she can actually interact with.

(That group loses some friends too to her creation, and the list of mistakes just keeps piling upon itself, growing bit by bit.)

She'd almost forgotten about having to worry about elemental associations.

And there's no doubt these people come from a world with benders, the one with long black hair having to use a vial of water to have anything to bend with at all.

The ice spikes he make melt almost instantly in the heat and are dodged by the people he shoots at, one of them stopping the ice in midair, but it's a worthwhile attempt and a successful distraction.

More interesting that that is his friend, running on Harper's other side when the earth behind them trembles and begins to split while a blast of air pushes their pursuers to the ground. The flames that dance around them and push them back, for a moment, surprise Harper solely by not being hers, more spirals of ice being fired at the first stragglers to push through the fire.

(She's never met someone with the ability to bend all four elements, though she's sure there's a world full of people who can, sure as there are worlds full of non-benders and only benders and the many hundreds mixed of each.

There's a story here she'll be interested to hear when they're not fleeing for their lives.)

Harper's too busy flipping switches and trying to get them out of sight to ask any questions yet, though one zombie gets too close for comfort, biting at the waterbender before she sets it on fire and drags him through the escape hatch.

He doesn't seem to be hurt, which is more than can be said for the zombie.

"You're a firebender?"

And it may have something to do with the world he's from, or the culture, but he sounds utterly enthralled, eyes bright and without the sharp glint Hadrian always had when he talked about her abilities.

Oh. Hm.

She wasn't expecting that.


	11. Withersickness AU

Lukas is glaring, eyes narrowed and his fingers curling tighter around the sides of her armor, and Jesse's shoulders tense while the tightness in her chest eases.

He knows.

She doesn't know for how long he's been sure, but Lukas is observant. He's probably suspected since the beginning.

He's waited this long, though, so Jesse pretends not to notice until they're over the worst of the mountain pass, waits until the dip down into the valley to look over her shoulder at him.

(It might be her imagination, but she think the wait's made his glare fiercer, now joined by a scowl that wasn't there before.

If Jesse waited longer, she has a feeling he'd have started the conversation fairly soon.)

"Are you okay?" Jesse's voice is quiet and soft, enough to go unheard by the other over the plodding of hooves and the nearby trickling river.

The question is not the best choice, judging by how Lukas's scowl deepens, and goes unanswered, giving Jesse enough time to notice that Reuben also seems unamused and would probably be as vocal about it if he had the choice.

"You told Petra to stay behind."

It's a simple statement, and it would maybe seem out of place if Jesse's throat wasn't throbbing, the collar of Ellegaard's armor not fully hiding the purple tinge to her skin or the violet lines and strains of color spanning her neck.

"I didn't... I didn't _know_ then, okay? And even if I did, I still would have told her that."

Lukas's look goes from sharp to flat at that, a sting present in the words no matter how quiet or gentle they are or how good of a place they come from.

"And thrown yourself into danger?"

He won't like the answer.

"There's nothing I can do for us now, not without splitting up the group and putting everyone at risk."

She'd feel bad for pulling that card, for bringing other people into this, if it didn't work, Lukas pausing as his brow furrows.

One person wouldn’t split up the group.

"...us? Who?" Her eyes stay on the swaying grass ahead of them, and while it doesn't stop him, his voice finally softens in tone, as does his posture. "Who else, Jesse?"

She wants to tell him, for a moment that flits between them like the pain thrumming in the back of her throat or the ache darting through the back of her head. About Olivia, who pulled Jesse out of the beam, who was at the front of the line, who has purple circles under her eyes that seem too dark to just be from a lack of sleep, whose extra jumpiness isn't so easily brushed off as stress.

About Axel, who walked out of Boom Town like he was down a leg, the right one stiff and with a limp that she doesn't think came from any explosion, who brushed it off as best he could while hanging out with Magnus, whose deep, splotchy purple marks likely aren't just bruises, who's been running for day and days from the Witherstorm to try and buy them all some time.

(She wants to talk about Petra, who's been all by herself for each of those days, dying slowly, maybe already dead from a zombie or the storm itself or just her withersickness, just so she can get that worry off her chest.

Or Gabriel, with them and struggling more with amnesia than the sickness, grappling more with not knowing how much pain walking should give him than the pain itself.

And a tiny part of her wants to mention the purple in Lukas's eyes, the flecks of neon where they shouldn't be.)

But she doesn't.

Instead, she tilts her head enough to nod at where Ivor's riding with Soren, busy fighting off sleep and failing.

"Wait, him?"

Jesse nods, fingers absently tangling themselves in her horse's mane before smoothing it back out.

"I think he came across it when he was trying to get to us, when the storm got back up. Before he started fighting with Soren."

There's been a tired acceptance to Ivor since they left the Far Lands, an easy exhaustion.

The tired acceptance could just be because Soren's lie has finally been exposed for what it really is, tired acceptance that what's done is done and that they're finally going to be done with this mess, but Jesse hasn't missed the trembling fingers, the way Ivor stubbornly keeps his arms covered at all times. She isn't the only one to have noticed.

(Even on their way to Ivor's laboratory, Soren never brought it up, despite how he and Ivor bickered about everything else.)

There's a reason Soren's the one with control of the reins.

She's been selfish, in her thoughts. She's considered insisting that she and Ivor are just slowing them down, that they need rest, and to let the others go on to deal with it...

And it's so very tempting right now, here in this warm clearing, untouched as of now and bathed in warm sunlight. Even if it's too late for Jesse to recover, this wouldn't be a bad place to die, a bad place to hang out with Reuben until then.

But in the end, it's not worth it. Ivor is stubborn and Jesse's too tired to be hypocritical, to demand he stay when Lukas knows better, when Ivor likely knows better, and there's no way Jesse can just sit this out and let her friends march off to their doom, not when she could do her best and take down the Witherstorm, keep any of them from having to go inside.

Lukas could insist, of course, like she did for Petra. He could make her sit it out, take the weapon from her and go on to handle it himself.

But Jesse is stubborn and they're all so very tired, so Lukas instead offers to take control of the reins for a while, letting the two of them swap places while Jesse rests her head on his shoulder. It's the best, least messy way for the conversation to have gone, for all the things left unsaid.

(A very bitter part of her mind whispers that it only works because Lukas is too much of a coward.

It's not fair of her to think that, not when she insisted he come, not when she's kept him from willingly throwing himself in danger and finding his friends, but it's hard not to be at least a little mentally testy at this point. He's had just as much a chance to run, though, to abandon them, and he hasn't yet.

She's never wanted to be a hero, but that's not what this is about. It's about helping her friends, keeping them from being hurt any more than they already have.)


	12. Supernatural AU

The competitor village is cold, icy, filled with people used to killing each other, and it's starting to wear on Jesse.

It doesn't help that almost everything here seems dead, the ground nothing more than sheets of ice and patches of hardened snow over dry dirt and the occasional dead tuft of grass. Nothing here reaches out to speak to her, nothing responds when she mentally prods at it, and the air of misery mixed with fermented dread is really beginning to drag.

(There is, also, still the fresh memory of watching her friends get crushed to death on loop in the back of her mind, temporary death or not. She still remembers seeing them die, watching their blood splatter the ground and armor, seeing it on her hands.

That's a bit of a drag too.)

The small talk is likely for Nell's own benefit as much as it is Jesse's, given that Nell's the one responsible for the gruesome temporary deaths.

"So, what do you think of Em?"

"She's a literal troll. I don't think there's anything I can add to that."

Jesse does her best not to judge when it comes to other species, not beyond knowing the warning signs and how and when to be respectful, because it's not fair and most of the time the stereotypes aren't very accurate to begin with. She's never liked anyone trying to use them to judge her; at best satyrs are seen as party animals and at worst, just animals.

So all judging aside, Em?

Well, Jesse doesn't know too many trolls, hasn't even seen that many beyond Aiden, but Em's the biggest one she's seen yet, at least three heads taller than Jesse and roughly the size of Axel. Where Axel's all wood and leaves, though, Em's all rock, her hide as hard and thick as stone and her tusks as sharp as swords, as long as Jesse's arm.

They might actually be made of steel for all she knows.

Em's certainly the most intimidating member of her team, and far more annoyed at Jesse than Nell seems to be about the "elimination" of one of her own teammates.

(Not because somebody died, because apparently that's commonplace enough here, but because Em thought that was her last good team member.)

The one weakness Jesse can find, if that, is that Em's been sticking to the shade, but how much sunlight affects trolls varies from one to the next and it might just be that it's easy for Em to overheat with a body that looks like carved stone.

Nell either doesn't notice Jesse's wandering attention or doesn't care, shrugging even as she chuckles.

"Hah, fair enough."

The small talk meanders from there, to how long Nell's been here, Nell apparently being one of the newest competitors but having been here for longer than she can keep track of, and if life is like this all the time for the competitors, which it is.

Still, Jesse gets the wheat she needs and gets to make it into bread immediately after, so it's one less imminent concern.

There's something to be said for how Jesse finds the "epic loafage" bit of the entire encounter to be the weirdest part, but it's been a long... however long it's been since they all last slept, before Petra ran into Crown Mesa's world.

And then Nell decides to go and top it.

"Thanks, I owe you." Hiding the bread won't be hard, since Jesse won't have to go too far to get back to the guarded portal.

Still, it's hard not to glance over her shoulder, but if she's learned anything, it's that looking suspicious is the best way to get caught.

"Hey, it's the least I can do for you, after..." Nell trails off before she shrugs, smile faltering before she grins. "If you ever really want to make it up to me, though..."

She points at her fangs.

Jesse stares, Nell's expression not changing, and it takes an almost embarrassingly long pause to realize what she means.

With how Nell acts, Jesse would almost expect her to be a selkie, or a kappa, or something more water related. Goes to show how accurate the stereotypes are, but Jesse can't quite remember the name of Nell's kind. It's some kind of vampire, her fangs and pale skin giving that away, but the sunlight doesn't seem to bother her. That might have something to do with what kind of vampire she is, her hoofed feet not typically the norm.

(Not that Jesse's saying that's a bad thing; she likes her hooves too, and it is nice to meet someone else with them, satyr or not.)

But a vampire's a vampire, and they can be lovely people but back home they don't just randomly ask people they've just met to feed them _their own blood_.

"What? No!" However, that's rude, and Jesse is also all alone with a vampire in a place the gladiators aren't watching closely, so Jesse's quick to smile and smooth out her tone. "I'm sorry, but no thanks. I... kind of need all my blood."

"Nah, it's cool. I told you it was up to you." Nell shrugs again, hand moving to wave her off. "I sorta forget how weird it is; everybody here's kind of used to it. They don't like really giving us food here, so if your teammate's hungry, you just help them out."

Well, that's horrifying. For everyone involved, by the sounds of it.

"Isn't blood bonding kind of an issue?"

"Not really. It's useful for helping the team get along, and respawn seems like it gets rid of all those effects so there's no way to worry about somebody who's been fed on being controlled by whoever bit them..." Her voice softens as she trails off, and Nell pauses, rubbing the back of her neck. "...but you're not planning on dying."

Jesse chooses to ignore that they're also not on the same team, hoping that Nell's half as trustworthy as she seems and wouldn't plan something underhanded, and instead shrugs.

"Who does?"

"Nobody, but, well... we all kind of expect it, at this point. Nobody here's really a Tim, y'know?"

Right, Tim.

That's another weird thing about this place Jesse doesn't get.

She hasn't really seen him yet, outside of all the posters plastered around the village portraying an elf with sharp teeth and bright eyes, but given how many times she's already heard about him, he must be a big deal.

(And Jesse's maybe still a bit shaken up about how Nell just casually asked for her blood.)

"Uh, yeah, sure."


	13. Fairy Tale AU

Queen Isa is a tyrant, they murmur in the countryside as their necks burn red in the sun and sweat trickles down their faces, each desperate to have the harvest ready in time.

A dictator, they whisper to each other in the crowded streets of cities, too bitter to contain their stewing rage but still not wanting to be heard by the patrols.

Jesse won't say she knows better, given that she hasn't had to deal with the extreme restrictions or taxes of the people even as she spends most of her days on her knees, scrubbing the floors, but she knows a different story.

Her mother hasn't been well. Not since Jesse was young, barely old enough to remember the words of bedtime stories and lullabies but more than ready to want them.

For a while she thought it may have had something to do with her father's passing, but even as a child the relationship between her mother and father had never seemed the most loving. They each loved Jesse dearly, and were cordial with one another, but it wouldn't surprise her at all when she found out years after her father's death that the marriage had been entirely political.

It wasn't about losing Ivor or having to deal with new suitors; it had more to do with the gift her mother received shortly thereafter.

(Hardly even a gift, really, the spoils of an expedition to recently abandoned magical territory. A mirror, many times taller than Jesse had been as a child, the glass black but untouched even as its frame had begun to crumble around it. A new frame was made, iron and simple, to complement the glass.

It looked nice enough to Jesse, but the scary thing had never been its design, as unsettling as that could get.

The much more terrifying thing was the green eyes that would stare back.

Not Jesse's own brown ones, and not even the deeper green of her mother's eyes; bright green eyes that watched her, followed her movements. The rest of the face was to follow soon after, but the eyes continued to stick out to Jesse, even as the voice fought with them for the title of creepiest feature.)

Mirrors can reflect many things, but people can't see voices. Not most people. And the voice is never seen, rather heard or felt. It's a mirror with a sly voice and a dry sense of humor, a mirror with the ability to answer any question and show any place or person if asked.

(Jesse had asked the mirror its name, once, before Isa had started to give her chores and forbade her from ever entering her mother's chambers again. Even before her mother used her magic, either having gained it or simply allowing herself to use it freely, Jesse lived in a world of it, and when it comes to magic, nothing is more important than a name.

The face in the mirror had blinked, paused, and simply answered that it was Aiden.)

It's getting harder to remember what her mother's voice sounded like when it was warm and soft.

Her voice still goes quiet, now, but never without a hint of ice, fury coursing through the words as they frost over. When her mother is quiet, she is at her cruelest and her angriest, and no one is happy.

It might be for the best that Jesse spends most of her time cleaning and maintaining the courtyard.

But even that doesn't save her forever.

It's amazing, how she can go from singing with a mystery person, eyes alight with energy and dancing with the sort of happiness she hasn't seen anyone have since her father fell ill even as the stranger stopped singing and began to just talk to her, to running for her life in a forest of trees as old and gnarled as time itself in only a few hours.

 (Part of her's shocked it's only been a few hours while another part of her can't believe it's been that long, faster and filled with more encounters and drama than her days have been in a long time.)

She hopes Reginald will be okay.

(As far back as Jesse's memory goes and further, he's always been her uncle before anything else, though there's no blood relation. It never stopped her from calling him her Uncle Reggie, and it never stopped him from letting her.)

Reginald has been her mother's best friend for as long as Jesse can remember, even as she's turned on Jesse and grown cold to the world around her. He's done everything Isa's asked, been the most competent and skilled captain of the guard she could ever ask for, and done so many terrible things in Isa's name.

(He and Jesse have discussed the mirror before, and Reginald has been wary of it from the moment it was presented to Isa.

Magic mirrors don't break to swords or fists, and Reginald hasn't tried to destroy it, not when it's a mirror that Isa adores and one that will gladly tell on him if he tries to bring it harm.)

Jesse can't imagine Isa hurting Reginald, much less killing him.

But she never expected her mother to want her dead either, and here they are.

Fairest.

It's a qualifier that confuses Jesse, her mother having never cared specifically about her beauty no matter how self-absorbed or cruel she's become. And while Jesse's not going to deny that she probably crossed the threshold from cute to pretty several years ago, the timing of _now_ makes little sense.

At least for beauty.

There's another way it could work.

Because her mother is a tyrant and a dictator in the eyes of the people, but she hasn't unjustly imprisoned anyone or punished people without reason.

The laws are just that strict, that cruel and unforgiving, and her mother works as judge, jury, and executioner. The taxes are to be given at the same time at the same day of every month, no later, and the rules are to be adhered exactly as they worded. No one has been targeted by Isa herself for calling the queen a tyrant or a , but instead for staying up and about in the streets after curfew, even if by a minute, for taking money that isn't theirs, even if someone simply dropped and forgot a coin and another person picked it up hours later.

Her mother is brutal, but, in a twisted way, fair.

Jesse can't claim to being that sort of fair, too ruled by emotion and too soft, and so that option makes no sense either.

Except.

Except that something occurs to Jesse as she stumbles upon a pig caught in a crude trap, somewhere between piglet and full grown as it struggles, unharmed but tangled in the net. It occurs to her that her first thought as she frees it, untangling the netting and trying to gently calm the pig as she does, is that she wants to find whoever did this and find out _why_.

Hunting in this forest happens to be illegal, and would normally earn a sentence of several years in jail and a formal apology or death. Her mother's ruled both sentences before for the crime.

If given the chance, however, Jesse would rule both by the written rule and contextual evidence, the breaking of a law and the situation surrounding it. A person arrested simply for curfew, though on their way home and a minute late, does not deserve the same sentence as a person loitering the streets well after curfew has been called. A person hunting for surplus hide or a trophy is not the same as a person hunting for food for themselves or their loved ones.

It also occurs to Jesse that her birthday was likely not less than a week ago, with how warm the weather has been, and thus that she's likely at the age where she now has a legitimate claim to the throne or the right to be married and co-rule another kingdom.

(She has no interest in either and neither is likely, her mother in perfect health and all other rulers either already involved or looking for far more than some princess-turned-servant-girl.)

Oh.

Oh no.

Jesse grimaces as she continues to scratch behind the piglet’s ears, the animal now free of the net and either not realizing it or busy sniffing her ripped but simple dress for carrots, which she had been pulling from the garden earlier. This is not a fun revelation to be having when the wind picks up, branches swaying heavily while the clouds barely visible past the thick of the thorns and dead trees grow darker and darker, both from the oncoming storm and setting sun.

She really hopes this doesn't come down to strong moral fiber and a chance at being eligible to rule, but fate has not been kind today.

So Jesse holds onto the net, hoping it will be useful for something beyond catching innocent animals, and begins to move on again, tapping down both the fear rising in her throat and the amusement at the pig still following her. Fate has not been kind, and so she must take it her own hands.

Jesse’s saved from having to build a shelter of her own when she and her new friend, who didn’t like the name Orville but doesn’t seem to mind the name Reuben, stumble upon a seemingly abandoned cottage.


	14. Role Swap AU

Lukas plans. It's what he does.

It gives him something to do, let's him feel comfortable in knowing that no matter what, he tried his best and looked at all the options.

He always plans.

He never, ever wins.

None of them do. It's not that they never do well, and some years they really do outdo themselves, but just good isn't good enough when it isn't as great or amazing as another team.

It doesn't help that 'another team' is always the same team, always one step ahead, always better, and always insufferably cocky about it.

Lukas doesn't blame his friends; they do their best, they always have fun at Endercon, and really that's what matters.

But just once, just one year, he'd like to win.

Everything, in theory, should be in their favor, should give them some kind of advantage. And maybe it does but then it doesn't explain why they still do so poorly in comparison, because it's not as if they're bad builders or teammates.

They've been meeting every day for a week to go over supplies, Lukas always gets started on blueprints a month or more in advance, the three of them hang out all the time as friends, and whatever time they waste goofing off is made up for by how they already know every part of what they're going to do.

Even when Olivia tries to get creative, the explosives she brings sometimes too dangerous to use and other times just what they need, or Axel realizes a new way they could set up the technical side of it, usually for more efficiency and only occasionally with the rare unexpected malfunction because they didn't have the time to test out the new idea before the competition, it usually just makes it better.

Jesse's team, in contrast, meets up about as regularly just to hang out because that's what friends do, but they never seem to get items early, or go over what they'll build, or bother thinking of a team name.

They chose one name years ago, it stuck, and now they haven't had to worry about it since.

(Jesse doesn't even plan what they're going to build until a day before, if she does at all, and that makes Lukas's blood boil now as much as it did when he first learned it. That's amazing and impressive and also infuriating because somehow her team's spontaneity always beats his careful planning, testing, and preparation, no matter how soon he gets started or how late she actually comes up with an idea.)

It helps that that's their only real competition, most other teams who compete decent dreamers but not exactly stellar builders. They'll get better, but with everyone improving every time, it just keeps Jesse's team fighting with theirs for the top.

Really, it's more like Jesse's team keeps kicking them down to the bottom every time.

Olivia and Axel live out in the nearby forest, and while Jesse does and Petra's too much of a cool loner most of the time to ever stick anywhere for long, their other two teammates happen to live pretty close to Lukas. Maya and Gill, people that he could probably get along with if they stopped bullying him. It's never rough, or that mean-spirited, but it's enough teasing to make them antagonistic in his mind.

Their normal teasing's bad enough, every flaw and feature he has up for being prodded at, whether they think they're just joking or like he doesn't care or not, but they always get insufferable right before and after Endercon and he really wants to prove them wrong just once.

This year's bonus of seeing an Order member in person helps.

The weather's good for it, their supplies are in good condition and their plot for building seems stable enough for their glowstone illuminated fireworks launchers, and despite all the good points in their favor Lukas's stomach drops as soon as he sees Jesse at the entrance table.

He's not the only one, if Axel's groan says anything.

"Gods, can't one of them ever get sick?"

"I thought you said she was cool?" Olivia looks up from where she's been inspecting their fireworks, her gloves still dusted with gunpowder and different dyes and her face smudged with soot. It doesn't hide her grin or the way her gaze darts over to Petra, standing beside Jesse.

It's their own little in-joke, one they don't mean or bring up harshly, that despite their little rivalry Axel's still got a crush on Petra, though not as much as he did when he first met her.

(It’s hard to like someone too much if they’re a bit of a bully.)

Axel's blush before he roughly yanks down his goggles from where they'd been resting on his head, putting them over his eyes so he can look like he's focusing more on sorting the redstone, doesn't help his case.

"Yeah, Petra's cool and all, but it'd be easier to like her if she wasn't such a jerk about it."

The three of them stiffen as Petra leans over the fence, resting one of her elbows on top of the post, and it's now that Lukas realizes she'd wandered over from where Jesse is still getting registered.

(Something she also could've done as early as yesterday, but that’s the bitter in him talking.)

"Hey, it's nothing personal. I'm just cool and you're... not." Petra shrugs, her smile twisting into a toothy grin. "It's not like you've had years to try and get better or anything."

"Oh, wait."

Lukas's fingers curl around the wooden post in his hand as Maya joins in, but she doesn't say anything to him or the others before she and Petra move on to where their area is this year, Jesse and Gill already setting up.

There's a break for a bit of an obnoxious team handshake and name call, though.

Hog-wild Boars. Creative, clever, works well with their mascot; Jesse's pet/companion, a pig she calls Reuben, currently sitting by her feet and getting a scratch behind one ear from Petra. Lukas isn't even sure if Reuben's a pet at all, and he's not the first or only person to have heard Jesse call him her best friend.

The three of them, in contrast, don't really have a solid name yet.

They'll stick to one when they win, but 'the Ocelots' feels a bit like the latest in a long line of potential winners. It's the one Lukas has liked the most so far, and it's another reason he hopes they actually win this time.

"Yeah, it was funny the first time." Axel grumbles as he shuts the chest, frowning as he watches them. "It's not like they've had years to come up with anything new- oh, wait."

They haven't needed anything new, not what when they do wins and works, but it's a sentiment Lukas can easily understand.

"I could keep them busy." And one Olivia can too, judging by the small bag of white powder she holds up. Lukas isn’t sure where she got it and he doesn’t want to know.

"Hey, I'm not getting disqualified because you wanted to try using itching powder to mess with them." Axel turns to face her, crossing his arms and not looking at all impressed by the small pout he gets in return.

"The last thing we need is to give them an open invitation to give us more trouble." Lukas grimaces, forcing it aside with another smile as he walks through their gate to meet Jesse.

They do this every year, and it's maybe wearing on him a little. Or maybe he’s just trying to distract himself from how there’s mud on his boots again and he’s not sure how, though he’s sure it makes him look less professional.

"Good luck." Jesse's smile is big and soft and looks so, so cocky, though that might be years of failure talking as he shakes her hand.

"You too. Hope you brought your A-game this year."

Jesse's smile gets wider, gaining a bit more of an edge to it.

"Always do."

With that, she lets go of his hand and walks away, and it's only now that Lukas notices Petra having a similar interaction.

It's not with anyone from either of their teams, though. It's Aiden, and he's just handed her something small, crystal, and incredibly rare.

"Thanks, Aiden."

A nether star.

There's not a lot somebody can make with a nether star, and a beacon sounds like a surefire win.

"Aiden, what's the deal?"

"Seriously, you think they need the help?" Axel's lifted his goggles again just so Aiden can see how wide eyed he is as he gestures to where Petra's likely bragging as she hands Jesse the star.

"No, but I think _I_ need the money." Aiden also lives fairly nearby, but he's in and out at odd hours of the day and Lukas is almost never sure where or when to find him. "Relax, you guys got this. You get better every year."

"So do they." There's something bitter, spiky and twisted, resting in Lukas's chest, something horribly disappointing about how this time Jesse could've been burned for not thinking ahead, how her team's build would have suffered for once from not planning at all, and how easily she was saved. He pushes it aside and smiles instead. "Are you staying for Endercon, or do you have more clients you have to get to?"

Aiden considers the question before he gives a half smile, shrugging.

"Eh, just one, but he can wait. I won't meet up with him until after it gets dark." There's more to what he has to say, Aiden starting a word he can't finish before the judges call for building to start, and then it’s game time.


	15. Super Hero AU

Having powers isn't a rare thing.

It's not that common, but every good hero has them, anybody worth telling stories about or looking up to. The best adventurers can do so much for not only themselves, but everyone around them, using sharpened wits and charm right alongside honed natural talents.

Olivia's spent a long time torn between feeling as lucky as she knows she is and ungrateful for a gift some people can't even understand.

Because, for an engineer? Like her? Who wants to work with redstone?

Super strength is kind of a pain.

In the sense that she can crush rocks in the palm of her hand, which she doesn't need to do often, and crush redstone into expensive glitter or send it flying when she means to only adjust it a little, which is something she does and miscalculates often.

Confidence goes a long way and she's better now than she was when she was a nobody, easily manipulated by the looks people threw their way and the pressure that made her fingers tremble, but even now it occasionally happens.

She's a new hero, and that's as confidence-boosting as it is anxiety inducing, because now so many more people care about what she does, so many more are watching her.

They depend on her and rely on her, on what new inventions she can make and use, and that's a new pressure.

It steels her in a way that stills her fingers, keeps them as stable and gentle as needed, but makes her heart clench.

Powers don't define people, shouldn't, but sometimes they manage to anyway.

It's the sort of thing that makes people a target, Jesse's lack of powers making her easy for the Ocelots to tease for years even though Lukas seemingly had none himself, and makes other people want to lie about or hide them.

Lukas, it turns out, does have a power, though he put off using it until he had to. The ability to control shadows, to melt into them, isn't a common one.

(Not outside of being used by villains in stories.)

And Olivia couldn't figure out how a spider bite gave Petra the ability to control rocks, since it was a normal cave spider and the two seem entirely unrelated, but powers are weird and fickle and it's not like she could explain hers any better even now; Olivia's always had hers, and plenty of people out there don't discover or gain theirs until something weird and random happens.

Still, it made a lot more sense once Petra admitted she'd been lying, about the spider thing. She just didn't want people to think that her power was the only reason she's cool, and that makes sense to Olivia.

(As much as the Order faking always having powers to seem cooler and make their story more believable does, at least.)

They're both good examples of people, heroes, who refuse to bow to what they should be.

Lukas is a hero, though Olivia doesn't know where to find him, where he went to after they saved the world and he left. He's not a coward or a villain, as mixed as her feelings might still be about how he stood aside and let them be bullied before, and he likes cats and cookies way more than he likes stealing or hurting people.

And Petra's like Olivia, not fitting into what kind of hero people expect her to be.

Ellegaard, the engineer, had the ability to control metal, to move it and control it at will. It's Gabriel, the warrior, who has super strength, the ability to defend and attack at great length. Axel at least is like Magnus, with the ability to create fire and explosions.

(And more harmless spark effects that look like fireworks, dazzling at night and more calming than anything when the teasing gets to be too much or she and Jesse are feeling down.

A power that can destroy so much doesn't keep him from creating or being kind.)

Olivia prefers working with redstone instead of weapons, prefers even a bow to the sword, and Petra's far more skilled at using her body as a weapon and her weapons as extensions of her body. The rock control is useful, especially whenever Petra goes on a mining trip or when a boulder can finish off a battle, but it doesn't define her in any sense.

( _Maya_ has the ability to move and bend metal at will, just like Ellegaard. Olivia would say she's not bitter, but she'd be lying. She's been bitter about that since the first time it was thrown in her face, used to push her down.)

Olivia's spent most of her life fighting against what her power has labeled her, what her power can have her do. She's fought against battle and violence, turning towards it only recently to protect and help her friends, only started using it in training so she can better it.

And now?

Now, Aiden's shirt collar peeking out from under his armor and held tightly in one of her fists, now she's going to embrace it more than she ever did before. The night wind is cool, managing to tickle its way under her cap and to play with the ends of her hair, and the branch under her foot breaks in one loud crunch as she presses her boot down on it.

And he’s not saying anything, not making any more threats and not even trying to scream.

She’s not expecting him to be scared, but Aiden’s thing is voice amplification. His scream could probably take her down, but he’s too quiet right now.

He’s still quiet when she throws him and he lands between two trees, groaning enough to let her know he’s not hurt.

Not badly, and that’s what matters.

There's something gratifying about being able to just pick up and throw Aiden out of the way, make him look as insignificant as he's made her feel, and it's the one time she's really had a chance to without making trouble for herself or the others.

This?

This is self-defense; he threatened them, all of them, after they saved his life and everyone else's, and it goes way beyond teasing or bullying.

Maybe it's because he's been so cocky about his new gear, wherever they got it or whoever they stole it from. Probably the same place as the strength potions, his breath reeking of ash and sparks while she can nearly see the blaze powder lighting up his eyes. None of it kept her from being able to twist the sword out of his hand.

Or maybe it's because she's never used her power against him before. Knowing she has it hasn't taught him to really be aware of what she can do when he's never had to worry about it.

It might explain why Maya and Gill still seem like they’re in shock.

(She's Olivia, the one with fraying gloves and goggles that Aiden used to steal until Axel lit one of his sleeves on fire after he made fun of them for 'being a couple'. She's the loser he picked on every year, whose dry retorts never do the same damage to Aiden as he does to her. She's the inventor who never wins. She's the one who'll never beat Maya, no matter how hard she practices and studies, because her power isn't meant for it.

And she packs a punch.)

Whatever the reason, it feels good, energy pounding in her ears as it mingles with the worn adrenaline of having already been through an adventure before this, and she doesn’t bother hiding her grin as Axel laughs and Jesse gives some kind of sheepish one-liner about having warned Aiden.


	16. Hadrian's Deal AU

There's no such thing as a bad deal.

Just people cruel enough to twist them and fools dumb enough to take them.

There's so much about Hadrian that isn't to be trusted, so much that warns Jesse it's a mistake, and one of those things is kidnapping her best friends, along with some poor random person who really doesn't deserve this either, for the sake of leverage.

An issue with that is said warning sign is also the biggest incentive Jesse has to take the deal and keep it.

She doesn't have to try and harm anyone else, to turn her back on anyone, or do anything that would put someone else in harm's way.

All she has to do is give up.

Jesse isn't good at giving up, but she's far worse at standing by and letting her friends stand in harm's way when there's so much she can do instead.

Every competitor here, every gladiator, every poor person dragged from their homes or lured here and then trapped, they've been here since Harper left, ran away and took the heart. The door to the rest of the network is open right now anyway, thanks to Harper taking them here. Giving Hadrian the heart now won't change much, if anything.

Even 'Tim' doesn't exist. He's another one of Hadrian's lies, a morale booster to keep them fighting against what they can never beat. Jesse doesn't have a hope in any world of doing what thousands of teams, of desperate people, haven't yet.

So when Petra freaks out, when she gets defensive about Jesse's deal and Em calls her an idiot for believing Hadrian, well, Jesse doesn't argue.

She just doesn't change her mind either. She's an idiot for believing him, but at least this way there's a chance. A chance for her friends to go free, to find their way home. Maybe Axel and Olivia picked up something when they were taken, maybe they'll have a better chance at finding the portal.

Maybe they won't, but the chance beats the certainty of constant failure and death that this place promises otherwise.

So when Jesse goes alone, in a rigged plot against teams with an already better chance, she doesn't try.

(It's the most hopeful she's felt since getting here.)

Jesse gets on her knees and takes the stab to the chest for what it is; brutal, fast, and quickly fatal. There's something just before that, Em or Nell trying to say something to her before the other team pushes on, but it's too late and it doesn't change anything anyway.

And Hadrian keeps his word, even goes as far as showing her out of respawn so she can see proof that her friends are being let go and shown the way back to the network.

(He misses the bloodshed as the gladiators tear into and obliterate the remaining teams, but there will always be more of that to catch later.)

Petra looks ready to scream, to fight, to claw Hadrian's eyes out or to slice his throat with nothing more than her teeth and bare hands, but in the end she doesn't. In the end, she calls Jesse an idiot, looking and sounding more ready to cry than Jesse's seen her around other people since this mess started.

The rest of them fume just as much, but in the end, this was Jesse's choice.

It's not their faults.

It's never been their faults.

Jesse's crushed in a group hug before the others are torn away from her and she's hurled into the mines.

In the days following that, while her arms throb from constant mining and her nerves fray from being stared at by the pigmen and nearest other miners, not quite believing that she's the one who was supposed to win the games or that she failed so soundly, Jesse clings to the memory of those last moments like she does to the rare occasion when a water canteen gets passed through the endless line of miners.

Lukas let go of her hand last, yanked away by the collar of his jacket, the ocelot one he never threw out.

Ivor had been the one to whisper that it was going to be okay, between mutters about what a foolish idea the entire thing was and how sorry he was that he sent them for the portal in the first place.

Axel nearly broke her bones, hugging her the tightest before Olivia had to yank his arms down to keep him from punching or trying to keep back the approaching gladiators, some of them still splattered in blood.

And Olivia was the one to cry first, tears soaking through Jesse's hair and overalls as she buried her face into the crook of her neck.

The games and the mines take more of her memories, more of her gut reactions and reflexes, twist her to get used to never crying until after she's been killed, twist her to make her target anyone unlucky enough to not stifle their sobs in time, giving away where they are and that they're badly injured, make her more used to and relaxed to the sound of ghasts in the distance because at least in the nether she probably won't die, but she refuses to let either take her memory of that moment.

Time has its own means of corruption, but time also means nothing here, in a place of sweat, tears, blood, and constant fear.

(Other carefully preserved and often thought about memories include what it had been like to just be nobody in a tree house, listening to the whistle of the wind while Reuben napped at the end of the bed and Jesse debated with Olivia over little stuff for fun, and the brief moments of enjoying being able to have and do so much more with her friends while they enjoyed the well-earned fame of being heroes.

Broader sensations than that are lost too easily, like what good food tastes like or how it feels to just sit in a field and breathe.

The first thing to go was how it feels to sleep in, or at least have the option. In the mines, everyone wakes up at the same time for work, and sleep is by choice only taken as needed in the games before training begins early.)

Jesse gets out of the mines several times, and gets sent back to them every time she dies in battle, or is too slow in spleef, or doesn't quite outrun another flow of lava.

Being crushed to death is her least favorite means so far, right below poison and drowning while someone keeps her under the water, and Jesse can never be sorry enough that Lukas and Petra had to go through it because of her failures.

There's so much she can never be sorry enough for.

Especially once she meets new faces after a lull, new faces that are new not because she just hadn't seen them yet but scared new faces that were just plucked from their worlds and thrown in, people who have no idea what's going on.

Jesse is so, so sorry to each and every one of them, because she did this. She opened the floodgates and gave Hadrian the key after letting Harper use it.

(Harper left with the others and Jesse blames her on her nastiest days, when Jesse's as bitter as smoke in the nether, wishes she had been as suspicious as Lukas or had made Harper stay in Crown Mesa while they continued looking. The promise of home with no price, nothing to lose for immense gain, had been too good to be true.)

Maybe it would have been better if her world had been consumed by the Witherstorm, or had Jesse never lived through it to screw up so much. If she'd been a better leader, not chased Aiden through the portal or let him get so close, had she led them home before Petra reached her limit and ran, this never would have happened. Harper would've stayed away from PAMA, never let it try and make a portal to escape, or been helped by some other hapless bunch she could mislead.

But what's done is done, and this is a fitting punishment for a poor leader, as much as all the people, new and used to this torment, don't deserve to suffer for her choice.

So it's not new, so much as sad or demoralizing, when another stranger ends up shuffled through the portal and forced into line with a pickaxe, shaking more than Jesse remembers leaves doing in a heavy storm.

She's sore, having lost in the last set of games yet again, and by all means this is not her business.

Her fault, but anyone else can help him, can let him know what's going on and tell him what to do best to survive, to get used to his new life.

Except no one does, not in time, not before the shaking slows but his breathing hitches, and sore or not, Jesse's heart is still too soft for her own good. They're close enough that she can shift over to him while mining, grimacing as they get deeper into the quartz vein.

Of course, it's no surprise that he jolts when she sets a hand on his shoulder, but she's not expecting the quickly cut off scream.

Jumpy.

That's not going to be good for him if he wants to last, either in the games or here, and Jesse hides a wince as he murmurs an apology.

It's a shame he doesn't have contacts, because she can tell already that his glasses will be used against him, knocked aside easily in the games or stolen by one of the bitter, crueler miners.

All of him looks unprepared and unmeant for this, wiry as he is, and she gets the feeling he's more like Nell; chosen to be a bit of a wildcard and an underdog.

"You're going to be okay." Her voice is quite, raw and rough from not being used since she screamed as she died the other day, but she hopes the smile she gives is soft enough to make up for it.

It might be, but that's not what catches her attention.

There's a glint of recognition in his eyes, a flash that's caught between shudders, and it's gone as soon as it appears, beaten back by pain and fear and an ache nestled deep in his core that won't be leaving soon.

It leaves a terrible feeling in her bones all the same, a sharp sting in her chest and the threat of bile clinging to the back of her throat.

"When does it stop hurting?"

The pain from respawn? Well, working in the mines doesn't give anyone much recovery time, but Jesse's found that it shifts into the fatigue of working and mining nonstop after a few nights' rest.

The crueler pain of knowing death will come again, knowing that this is life now and that everything good from the past is impossible to return to? That none of them will ever see their friends or homes again, no matter how much they work together or resort to trickery, because no one ever wins?

 _That_ still leaves a bitter taste in Jesse's mouth and it's a pain they all carry, from the newest people to the ones who have been here for too long to really remember life beyond the Games.

"Some sleep should help." Jesse grunts as she swings her pick, carving out another chunk of shimmering white from the dark pink netherrack. Gods, she hates quartz. That's something that hasn't changed, at least. "It doesn't hurt if you have somebody to talk to."

She brushes off the brief recognition as him mistaking her for someone else, or for having been someone she's forgotten but briefly met in any of the numerous worlds they went to before everything got worse.

Jesse really hopes that's all it is.

She knows her friends would never let anyone be taken from their own world again, not after what happened to Axel and Olivia, not when they know where the portals are and not when she knows they'd do their best to block them off forever.

He can't be from her world.

(Even if they don't destroy the portals, even if there's a tiny hope on both sides that Jesse will escape or that one day they'll come back for her, they care too much about everyone else to not do their best to block off Mevia and Hadrian.)

But he rambles, which at least helps his nerves, though they do nothing for hers as hours of small talk drag on and he tells her about people going missing where he's from and an 'Order' investigating it.

She cuts him off before he can get any further, tell her any more or confirm anything her denial is too tired to deal with.

(The thrill of knowing they made it home, that they’re safe and didn’t need her at all to do it right, is beaten by the dread of knowing that the safety is likely only temporary.)

"What's your name?"

He blinks, and for the first time, he smiles. It's weak, but she'll take it.

"Radar."

"It's nice to meet you, Radar." Her smile's weak too, and she knows better than to just count on shaggy, sword cut hair, the exhaustion of constant failure, and a starving appearance to save her. She's got a few nicknames, though, and while she doesn't want to lie, Nell's given her one that's close enough to the truth to use. "I'm Jess."


	17. Western AU

The ache in her spine crumbles as she twists, the last stubborn vestiges melting away as she stretches her arms above her head, her fingers interlocked and her palms to the starry night sky.

Jesse wishes she could say the same about her desire to sleep, but the fuzzy traces of the cozy feeling from being curled up in bed linger at the edges of her mind.

No rest for the wicked means no rest for the people trying to keep the wicked at bay.

Hmm. Keep them from their wickedness? Wickedly ways?

She's very, very tired, even if the aches of yesterday have already vanished, and she resolves to find a better sounding way to put that later.

The sand is soft under her boots, what little that gets blown up by the light breeze bouncing harmlessly off.

Right now she has to go and, well, go and stop the wicked or whatever.

Jesse pauses as she reaches the stable, shaking her head after a moment and shoving thoughts of sleep as far away as she can before adjusting her hat.

Because the alternative of going back to bed sounds lovely, until it comes with pushing responsibilities onto other people and leaving people she cares about and are responsible for at risk.

Jesse unties her horse, Winnie, before hopping on the saddle and beginning the short ride to the jail.

Petra and the others could take care of it, but they all want to go to bed too, and Jesse pulling the 'terribly busy, terribly tired' mayor card isn't fair.

Not when she's fought hard to be with her friends and wants to keep them as safe as she can.

Petra's technically the sheriff and Jesse's technically the mayor, but Jesse also refuses to be stuck just doing paperwork while her friends throw themselves into danger and have the time of their lives without her.

Besides, if all she did was stay in office while they stayed out of town, their fans would probably trample her alive. Jesse doesn't mind the people, but she doesn't like the fame, and she can easily see it happening thanks to both the excitement and the limited supply of only one hero to see.

It's led to a few fun debates and a few less than fun serious arguments over superiority and orders when then sun gets high and the stress runs higher, but overall they've worked out a system.

Petra does more of the shooting and interrogating while Jesse focuses on research, and they'll switch it up as they need to.

Today, well, Jesse's done what research she can and the story she's been given checks out.

A week ago, a travelling caravan of performers, well known in their own parts and steadily growing more known everywhere else, had vanished overnight after stopping in a sleepy town destined to be a ghost town.

(The ghost town thing became a bit more on the nose after several of the performers were found dead, their mangled bodies hidden in the very hotel they had stayed at, and the town lost whatever little business it had been getting. It didn't help matters any that the hotel, when investigated, had been found to be filled with death traps the owners insisted hadn't been there before.

The hotel had still been condemned and torn down shortly after, because them not knowing about the veritable landslide of death waiting in their hotel was about as reassuring as the idea of them being the culprits.)

It was sad, tragic, and extremely creepy just like that.

And now it's worse.

 _How_ it's worse is that at roughly 2 in the morning, when the moon had begun to descend back towards the stretching plateaus of distant mesas and sprawling desert and the coyotes had begun to howl in full at each other across the plans, one of the supposedly dead performers came looking for their help.

(He's not a ghost, as it turns out, but that makes it no less interesting a wakeup call.)

There are a few other oddities about him that Jesse doesn't have the right or the time to currently ask, such as his constantly flicking tail or swiveling fluffy ears, because his own stutter was busy trying to run him over while he explained to her and Petra even more unsettling news.

One, he is a thief, though what he took was nabbed from a friend in nothing more than a little prank, and one who Petra doesn't see any reason in arresting because of that.

Two, the reason he faked his death involves another not-as-dead-as-previously-thought performer.

Three, her name is Cassie Rose, she killed their entire caravan in a single night, and she wants what he has and has been hunting him down ever since.

Four, he actually would really like to be arrested here and now please, because even if they don't believe him or can't find her, he'll at least be safe in a tightly locked, guarded cell.

He's thought this out, and it makes him seem like he's too delusional from the heat to know how he sounds, too muddled with grief, or like he's actually telling the truth.

(It is an even more interesting wakeup call now and it's the first time Jesse thinks someone has ever asked her or Petra to arrest them for not doing anything technically illegal.)

They've dealt with weirder before, from a couple of washed up cowboys who managed to be famous by cheating the universe to an eldritch abomination created by a well-meaning, bitter potionslinger, and this isn't something any of them want to brush off.

So Petra sent Jesse to go through what records they have, from newspapers to formal complaints to the official usual inter-town business.

She did, there was a caravan, they died gruesomely, and both 'Cassie Rose' and himself, 'Stampy', were listed as two of the dead, though some bodies were notably either too misshapen to recognize or still not found. Cassie Rose was an actor, her performances, both comedic and tragic, greatly applauded, and he had a reputation for redstone tricks and comedy.

(Jesse still thinks he might be a ghost, but that's something they can talk about later.)

So, after they agree that it's business they should at least talk about now, their new prisoner as paranoid as a zombie in sunlight, Jesse gets to ride and wake the rest of their friends up.

A serial killer isn't something to push off until morning, not when she's been hunting their new guest nonstop.

Even if Lukas is about as happy to be woken up at two in the morning as a cat thrown in the rain, and even if Axel nearly punches Jesse by reflex when she wakes him up.

It's okay, it's a sloppy punch and she ducks.

Olivia already happens to be up, which is related to a different issue involving overworking and not knowing when to go to bed for her own sake, but it works out in their favor this time.

(Olivia's punches don't hit as hard, but they're fast and Jesse doesn't know if she could duck one of those right now.)

The four of them are up, ready to do what they can as soon as they can, and Jesse's internal planning on patrols and extra lookouts are quickly discarded once they hear a gunshot.

The following two just make them go faster, hooves thudding against the cobble path, only slowing when they get to the jail.

Tied up outside, there's an oddly colored, speckled horse Jesse's never seen before. Its dark eyes shine in the mix of lamp and moonlight, and she’s reminded of stories of roaming undead hustlers.

 (There's red hair visible through one of the windows. Not orange like Petra's, but red like Jesse's own dyed bit of hair.)

She swallows the fear rising in her throat, because the horse’s owner likely wouldn’t stay inside if she had what she wanted, and that means something has to be in her way.

Since Petra has the keys to the cells, that thing is probably Petra.

Time matters, now more than ever, and if this is 'Cassie', she likely won't take her time, the nearest houses already springing to life as people begin turning on their lights or fetching their lanterns to find out what's going on.

The four of them glance at each other before slipping off their horses, each holding a loaded gun and creeping towards the building.

Well, this should be good.


	18. Reuben Lives AU

Reuben has gone through a lot of things in his life, considering that he's just a pig.

Even if he wasn't a pig, if he was a horse, or a dog, or a cat, or even human, he gets the feeling that he's seen an awful lot for the time he's been alive, met many people and twice as many monsters he'd be fine not meeting.

He also gets the feeling that he's a lucky little swine to be alive at all, and not just because he was initially destined for the chopping block.

(Reuben got out of that one himself, pushed his way through a gate that had been left just open enough.

What was beyond that gate was a forest filled with fields and lakes and monsters, but the last part didn't bother him when he could find carrots whenever he wanted and had plenty of places to hide. Monsters were better than people, because monsters didn't want to eat him.

He'd met Jesse at a waterfall a little after that, and his life got a lot better after that, with less monsters and more carrots.

And a warm bed.

Reuben had never been in a bed before, so he couldn't miss the feeling, but once he had it? Once he'd rested on a soft mattress in a cozy bed, half tucked under the blankets and half on them? He still won't give up that feeling for the world, even if during summer nights the floor is cooler.)

It starts with the Witherstorm, though for a while there it feels a bit like the end.

Maybe their warm home is gone, or maybe it's just empty and as lonely as Reuben feels, but they can't go back and he's bitter that this is how his first Endercon goes.

The getting captured by the butcher thing is bad, and reminds him of times he'd rather not remember when he was a smaller, just as terrified piglet, and the fire on his costume is almost as bad, and the comments from Aiden about wanting to eat him are just rude, but the Witherstorm takes the cake for most horrifying highlight.

(He's a bit emotional, for a pig, but it makes life fun most of the time.

And even if he wasn't, now is the perfect time to be bitter, when he's hungry, terrified, and confused.

Most monsters don't care about farm animals, but that one almost seemed like it had a taste for pork, along with everything else.)

They live, though, because Jesse is awesome and she has some help from him and her almost as cool friends. Reuben almost dies in the nether thanks to a different flying monstrosity that gasped and moaned like it was desperate to kill, and then gets blasted in a competition that's maybe too explosive for a pig like him.

He thinks he's what made it so special, though, and Jesse needed the help.

(Magnus is loud, full of himself, a cheater, and smells like twenty different kinds of smoke. Reuben didn't even know there were that many.

He still feels bad, when Magnus rasps out what sounds like a joke later before going still. It's harder to kill humans than it is to kill most creatures, and maybe that makes death an even bigger deal to them, but he mourns all the same. That would be Jesse lying on the ground dead, if Magnus hadn't given her his armor, and it makes it easier to forgive Magnus for nearly blowing them both to fiery bits.

It also helps that Reuben can smell death, better than he thinks humans can, and he knows how this is going to end even before Magnus goes limp, his hand lax while his head hits the dirt.)

Then they find Petra, who Reuben really knows and is more than happy to see alive.

(Humans are weirdly resilient in the same ways they're weirdly fragile.)

But Petra isn't happy, or anything, her eyes blank and then confused, and she sounds like her but she doesn’t move or act the way he knows she does.

She doesn't recognize them.

That hurts, too, because Petra almost always has a carrot for him or a scratch behind the ears, or some neat item for him and Jesse.

There's been a disappointing lack of carrots during this entire disaster, but it's to be expected.

They all still recognize him, pick him up and save him when they need to and get saved by him at other times, and that's what matters, but Petra doesn't seem like she likes him or other pigs very much right now.

(He gets a bit of a sulk in after that because he's exhausted and scared.

And hurt.

It works out well that it gives Jesse time to sulk too, because Jesse's been just as scared and tired and Petra doesn't recognize her either.)

The weeks of travel are as scary as they are boring, but Jesse laughs and smiles, out of desperation maybe but smiles all the same, more during the trip than she's had a chance to in their faster days of chaos and death.

And then it's over, because Reuben's stubborn like Jesse but it pays off.

The payoff might involve running for his life when his legs feel like slime, dodging tentacles that focus on Jesse and trying to choke the life out of her.

The payoff might be a long drop into freezing water while those same heavy, inky limbs tumble down to the ground around them and threaten to crush them.

The payoff might be dangerous and nearly deadly, but Jesse springs out of the water right after he does and they're safe and it's over.

She calls him a hero and hugs him, and maybe there's a scolding for coming along when he shouldn't have but he gets more carrots later that night than he's had in weeks.

So it's worth it.

And when it gets crazy again after that, with building and moving scared people and Jesse actually sleeping like she should've been for over a month before, it's not trying to actively kill them.

But the memories don't go away, and thunderstorms aren't relaxing the way they once were.

(Jesse helped him get over his fear of lightning and thunder once before; now it's something they have to turn to each other and the others to help them with.)

The nightmares wake him up for years after that, when he gets his tusks and grows to full size and even gets the strongest body armor a pig's ever been lucky enough to wear, though the terrors aren't always his own.

Sometimes Jesse ends up nudging him in her sleep, busy clawing at the sheets or trying to stop a fall that lasted too long and too little, and sometimes she screams, and sometimes she goes looking for him and just pets him or hugs him until the sun comes up or she drifts off to sleep.

He has no idea what she'd do without him.

(Or what he would do without her, because in the end, he's just a pig who came very close to dying. Maybe he's a hero, but the stories Jesse likes never involved dealing with the aftermath, with heroes sobbing in their sleep.)

It's okay. He's here, and he'll always try to help, no matter what kind of crazy adventures come their way.

Reuben’s that kind of friend and that kind of pig, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.


	19. Admin AU

Some people might do extraordinarily well as gods, as all powerful beings capable of slowing time itself, beings that don't need food or sleep.

Soren is absolutely not one of those people.

And Ivor's beginning to despise this entire mess more and more, not helped by how Soren isn't even dealing with his problems himself.

It may be for the best, given that his problems largely boil down to all of Ivor.

Being hunted down by Gabriel isn't made any more fun by that fact, or any less tedious, and Ivor's words don't fall on deaf ears so much as unwilling ones.

"This is absurd." _This_ being the chase they've been having, throughout the temple, the woods surrounding it, and now the nearest village. It's not easy to hide from someone who can teleport directly to him, or have him directly teleported to Gabriel, and it's no surprise it's led to them arguing behind some building at the crack of dawn. "You know this has to stop."

Ivor would almost be worried about being overheard, if he didn't want the help and didn't know Gabriel was purposefully keeping anyone from being able to hear them or pay them mind.

"And how would you have me fight against the person who made me a god?"

What's a god but a mockery of a person?

Gabriel certainly seems like a parody of the friend Ivor knows. At first glance, it could be easy to mistake him for the warrior he was, merely wearing his armor while out for a stroll, were it not for his eyes.

Ivor can't imagine what emotions are like for a god, but if he had to guess, he'd imagine it akin to their powers; fickle, jumping to extremes, too much and too little to handle.

Perhaps it's another adjustment period, but there's something inherently terrifying in not finding the warmth in Gabriel's gaze that he’s used to. Either his eyes are stone cold, calculating and swift without any of the care Ivor knows he has, or they burn brighter than the sun, warm and filled with so much emotion it would kill any other being to hold.

(He pretends to be human, which is fascinating on its own. Ivor's seen how his skin's changed, saw it for only a glance. The flesh had seemingly been replaced by his armor itself, a mix of iron and diamond.

Ivor isn't sure if the human guise is for his comfort or Gabriel's own.)

"The same way he has you trying to kill a friend."

"I'd never kill you."

"Wouldn't you? To secure your power, the trust people will have in you? To secure your safety?" Ivor grins, bitter and empty, the chuckle he gives similarly so. He's been so tired lately, been having this argument for too long. Days of trying to hide form his own friends wear on a person. "I mean nothing, _Soren_ means nothing, to you. What matters is his block and the power it feeds you."

"You were given the same offer, Ivor."

"Did he offer you, truly? Did he ask what you wanted, give you time to consider?" If so, it was more than Ivor was given. "Or did he show you what he'd done to Magnus, to Ellegaard, to himself, and insisted on doing the same to you? He offered me a chance to be as indentured to him as you are now, as bound and tied by the power you claim frees you."

"We can do so much more this way."

" _Can_ , of course, but will you? I'm not going to say people shouldn't have this sort of power, but don't act as if you'll use it to further anyone but yourselves."

Ivor rakes his hands through his hair, fingers itching to use the sleeping potion sitting in the bag slung over his shoulder. All that keeps him from trying is past experience and the knowledge that it won't do any good, or anything at all. He’s sure Gabriel has a defense to that, some uplifting speech, but Ivor continues before he can begin it.

"You could do so much good with it, but Soren doesn't want to help for the sake of it. He wants the fame, the glory, the adoration of the people he sees as _below_ him."

Gabriel doesn't say anything to that, not anything Ivor can hear, and it's as damning as any response.

Well then.

His blood turns to ice, a vivid enough feeling that at first he wonders if Gabriel's doing something to cause it, and it's the first grounding sensation he's had since Soren came to him the first time, glowing with eyes as dark as the night sky and filled with as many stars, with a proposition as blinding and sickening as his grin.

Not by conscious decision, his voice softens.

"Am I one of those people, now, Gabriel? Am I so below you that you can't even listen to me?"

"I'm listening, Ivor, and I don't think you're doing the same. Whether or not I agree with you, whether or not I want to fix this, Soren can take it all away in the blink of an eye." Just like he removed the Enderdragon, just like he removed his own humanity. Soren's good, at taking things away, and just as skilled at terrifying his own friends. "I would never go against him, but at this point, I believe that's how he'd see any attempted help."

"Then I'll do it alone." Ivor has been trying, trying harder than anything else, to get through Gabriel, and if that won't work, then he's best taking it to the source of the matter. Neither of them think he can get through to Soren either. "The least you could do is let me try. Please."

"I won't let you walk to your death."

Gabriel's biggest issue is that he cares too much, that he always has and always will.

Ivor doesn't doubt that he has some twisted belief that he's keeping Ivor safe.

It manages to twist his grin into something both a bit more sardonic and a bit more genuine, the tired ache growing heavier as the bright pinks and oranges of sunrise begin to appear.

"At least if he kills me I'll finally be out of this mess."


	20. Mythical Creatures AU

Fae are, typically speaking, dangerous creatures not to be seen and definitely not to be trusted.

If one comes to a person, lays a trap and sets the bait right, it's on that person to wiggle out of the snare with their words, wits, dumb luck, and strength.

(Most fae aren't bound or bothered by the threats of a well-aimed punch, but many enjoy wrestling, and many still enjoy seeing what a mortal thinks they can do, for mortals try their hardest even when they have nothing to offer and no chance of success.

Fae is also a term that typically just refers to a particular set of tricky, winged bastards with their own special veil domain, but it's the term everybody uses nowadays for non-mortals and only snobs like mermaids really care about the difference.)

It's less often, though hardly rare, that a person goes seeking out the fae.

And Magnus might have brought it on himself a bit, hanging out in the same tavern almost every Friday night for the past three months, made himself known, but it's not like he's the only fae here. He's just one of the more consistent regulars.

He's a reckless fae, foolish and new in the eyes of most of the older, more pretentious mystical creatures, and maybe it's telling that he doesn't mind being tracked down.

He’ll blame that on the group doing the tracking.

They don't seem interested in hunting him down for parts, ingredients, or some kind of reward, anyway, and that means this is already more to his tastes. He hasn't seen any of them here before, or set any of them on fire.

They're as innocent as the half charmed song being slowly plinked out on the piano, the musician using at least four arms that are impossible to track across a mash of glowing wood and ivory keys, and they do themselves a favor by not openly gawking, instead heading straight towards his shabby little booth at the corner, visible enough to anyone coming through the entrance but not enough to ask for a fight.

They're as visible to him as he is to them, and it means being able to size them up and get a feel for what's coming.

It doesn't seem half bad already, the group not as entirely mortal as he first thought.

The one with orange curly hair, frizzy and as disheveled as he is energized, is probably a werewolf. The person beside him could almost pass for a vampire or a more reclusive wizard, robes dark and long while what little visible skin he has looks as pale as the moon.

There's a black creature on his heels, tail long and ears fluffier than the rest of its body, small and agile and making it much more likely that he's the latter of the two possibilities. It would look like a cat if its green eyes weren't so keen, so observant, or if its steps were less sure, the rowdy arguing at the end of the bar and the drunken game of darts not so much as bothering a single fluffy curl on its pelt.

The collar and shiny tag reading 'Jesse' are definitely just for show.

It's smug and it's knowing and that, well, that lets Magnus know he's in for a treat.

A mortal with a familiar is hardly fae, though he's closer to the fae and more likely to have an ounce of respect than a mortal without.

The respect bit's always fun; some fae care, some don't, and they all do so many crazy things to each other that it's funny some try to act responsible and dignified in front of mortals at all.

Magnus has, on one occasion, gotten to eat his own right arm, and he's been unlucky enough to have two chances to learn what his right pinky toe tastes like.

Bering able to regrow limbs only means he has equal chance of going through both again.

Payback sucks unless he's doling it out, and deals with the fae suck as much for fae as they can for mortals. The fae just happen to live through it if and when things go south, for better or worse.

That's beside the point, though, because there's a third (fourth including the familiar) member to their little party, one that's unmistakably magic, more obvious than the sorcerer or the overgrown puppy.

Where there's fire sizzling in his veins, there's shards of ice in hers.

It's not helpful to assume all fae know each other, because they might but there are enough century long grudges and prank wars that it's more of a headache to ask about than not, but the way he swears he's seen her before isn't helpful either.

There's something to her that reminds him about a couple of creatures he's met, including one mermaid who got too wrapped up in trying to drown him to care about being distracted by the fae-not-fae argument he'd wanted to rely on. Mermaids are hard to set on fire, thanks to their thick scales and watery environments.

Magnus doesn't think she used to be a mermaid, whatever she is, too wiry and elegant to be a normal golem.

Most golems are dull or narrow minded, focused on whatever orders their masters give them and little else until allowed to let their minds wander, and there's a spark in her eyes he hasn't seen in puppets or giant machines.

(He knows his sparks, and hers is as intelligent as it is terrifying.)

Her body's about the same size as her companions, maybe a bit smaller, and what isn't covered by a mix of leather armor and loose casual clothes is nothing short of metal.

(Not iron, because bringing iron in here would be asking for death, never mind likely to burn the flesh off of her red haired friend.)

There are lines of red running deeps through the twisting, bending metal plates, redstone glowing and humming beneath the surface, red like her eyes. She, more than any of them, promises trouble, promises death.

By the time they reach him, he's started smoking a cigarette lit by nothing other than a snap of his fingers.

"I'm Soren, and these are my friends, Ivor and Ellegaard. How would you like to be a hero?" Odd introduction and maybe laying it on a bit thick, but any lost interest is regained as soon as the wizard snorts, his robes reeking of ash and netherwart.

"How would you like to risk your own hide to slay a dragon?"

The familiar is sitting on the robes covering Ivor's feet, blinking up at Magnus as her tail sways slowly back and forth.

Grinning even as he links his hands behind his head comes easy.

"I'm listening."

He thinks he knows a guy who would be interested in this too.


	21. Command Block Pocket Dimension AU

Ellegaard may like to seem above it all, appreciate the reputation of being the sensible and responsible one, but the truth of the matter is that she's as waist deep in trouble as any of her friends at any given moment.

And, most times, her friends are often wading in considerable mayhem, which means she is too.

There may be some pride to how often she gets herself in that position on purpose, either to fix the trouble or a byproduct of it, but then she starts sounding an awful lot like Magnus.

It's never a good thing to sound like Magnus, if only because Magnus will never let her forget it.

And, in both her defense and in criticism of her actions, she should've known better.

The hold the command block has on Soren is almost visible, the way it's grown, twisted and snared around his mind and his use of time, and it may be stronger than the hold any of them have on him, either as friends or fellow 'heroes'.

It's a depressing thought, but it's hard for flawed people to compete with a perfect ultimate power.

Maybe she's just been busy reeling from the fame, from the adoration that comes with being someone to have survived slaying the Ender Dragon, for each of her friends working together to keep each other alive for a resolute victory, to worry too much about it.

(They tell a good story, when it comes down to it. The only person not happy with it isn't with them anymore, though it's not like he fell prey to the dragon or died from battle.

There wasn't any battle at all, not one with swords and armor.

Ivor left on his own, in the middle of the night without telling anyone and after a huffy fight with Soren, but at least he's not dead.)

She feels ill.

It's all too easy to shove the feeling aside as Ellegaard busies herself with the pile of blueprints in her arms, rolled up schematics and prototype notes, and it's replaced by something else entirely as she stops outside of Soren's door, one of her boots squeaking against the wood as it comes to a halt.

There's a voice coming from Soren's bedroom, one that's not his own.

There's an almost irresponsible, ridiculous hope bubbling up in her chest, as well as outright confusion. She and Ivor were as close, when he left a few weeks ago, as him and any of the others. She's been as hurt as Magnus and Gabriel that he left without a word, without later sending a letter to talk to them or explain himself or anything.

As his friend, as someone who's spent countless nights discussing books and people and random topics late into the stretching hours of the night, she can't bring herself to be mad he's back.

Confused, maybe, but she's thrilled.

And when Ellegaard knocks on the door, gets no response from Soren or Ivor, she nudges it open with her foot, setting her blueprints aside in as neat a manner as a person can when they want to toss them away.

She finds an empty room.

There's no Soren, no Ivor, nothing but the command block, resting beside Soren's bed.

She hadn't even realized he'd moved it from his lab.

There's a muttered curse at herself as she brushes her hair back, tapping down the disappointment with as much acceptance as she can muster, but she doesn't get the chance to turn away before the block _speaks_.

"I hate you." It's Ivor's voice, clearer than the static riddled recordings of jukeboxes. "How _dare_ you. Is it worth it? Are you _happy_ with what you've done to me?"

Ellegaard doesn't know when the block could've recorded Ivor saying this sort of thing, short of his final argument with Soren. Soren had never mentioned having it with him during the argument, though, for all the other details he gave of Ivor being furious before leaving without another word to anyone.

She supposes it doesn't matter, as much as the words don't quite fit the imagine scenario, but then.

Then there's a roar.

Ellegaard's heard only one like it before, as abruptly ended as the dragon was disappeared, vanishing into nothing before it could lay a talon on them and before they could aim a sword or arrow at it.

She almost trips over her own feet as she stumbles backward, walking to the door but refusing to take her eyes off the command block.

Even now she can feel it reaching out to her.

Ellegaard hasn't been privy to most of Soren's recent experiments or studies, pulling away herself before she gives into the urge to use all the power the block promises, but Ellegaard remembers a few notable tests; namely, the discovered ability to blink creatures out of existence. They had started with a slime.

Part of her wonders if it's that test that gave Soren the first idea for his plan.

More interestingly, the slime had popped right back into its cage with the quick press of a few different buttons, but not until after they'd tried the same test on a bird.

What had returned to the cage had been a confused mess of feathers and sludge, not so much squawking to be put out of its misery as terrified of its new form and the new world open to it. Them? Two minds, two states of consciousness, smashed together and forced to cope with their new reality.

In the end, it hadn't mattered.

Ellegaard and Soren had been enthralled and horrified, and the creature had ultimately met a quick, painless end.

It was perhaps the only kindness they could offer it, the command block too dangerous to attempt using to fix it, just as likely to make things much worse or far more gruesome.

They simply resolved not to attempt anymore mixed recalls, and their shared studies had concluded soon after, the best for both of them.

Ellegaard hadn't thought it healthy to grow so jealous of her friend when they were working as partners, to want the command block to favor her the way it did Soren, to fantasize about tearing it out of his hands and using it for her own gain.

She'd been amazed Soren had so much better self-control, at least until the dragon incident, but...

As Ellegaard looks at the softly humming block, the glow fading as much as it randomly brightens, as she hears the fading traces of the roar, the tempting chirps and beeps, and remembers Soren's lamenting about how unstable then block has been lately...

All that comes to mind is the poor creature they had created, an accident characterized by echoey chirps and an inability to fly as it wanted, bits of feathers and bone visible inside the slimy membrane.

She thinks she's going to be sick, if she isn't already.

By the time she exits his room, the door left slightly ajar behind her as she scoops up her rolls of parchment, she's begun to lose feeling in her legs.

All the same, her timing's as good as she could likely hope for, Soren rounding the corner from the hallway leading to the kitchen. He's a mess, clothing ruffled and hair even more wild than usual, and normally she'd be happy he'd remembered to eat.

Instead she tries not to stare, smiling at him after a moment and forcing back a cringe as he eyes her.

"Ellegaard?" His voice is soft, and it's with all the hope she can muster that she prays his quick glance at the door is merely her imagination. "Is everything alright?"

"Oh, I..." Ellegaard rolls her eyes and huffs lightly. "I'm fine, Soren. I thought Magnus had hidden one of my blueprints around here, but it was just at the bottom of the pile."

His expression doesn't change much, though he doesn't argue or try to pick apart her answer.

She wonders if he's as haunted by the thing inside his room as she is, beyond the simple bonds of promised power and control.

It explains so much about him.

"...you might want to get some more sleep. You don't quite look like yourself." His chuckle is soft and small, and by all means she should be relieved at the warmth in his eyes. "You almost look like you've seen a ghost."

It's far more understandable now why Soren's looked so disheveled, so startled and jumpy himself.

(If he's done anything close to what she thinks he has, he should be.

The guilt should eat him alive.)

"I'll try to keep that in mind. Thank you, Soren."

Ellegaard forces her shoulders to loosen, making sure the tilt of her head is sharp enough while she frowns down at the disorganized blueprints to seem properly distracted without being too tense.

It's not made easy by the gaze she can feel burning into her back, but she succeeds, and her footsteps are steady as she walks down the stairs to her workshop.

Her hands only begin to tremble once she's at the bottom, out of sight, and hears the door to Soren's room click shut behind his own fading footsteps. Setting the blueprints down quietly, beside the bottom of the stairs but not visible from the top, isn't aided by shaking fingers, and it's as difficult to keep her footsteps quiet as she turns away from her workshop and begins to all but run to Gabriel's room.


	22. Apocalypse AU

Jesse was new when the world itself had grown gnarled and twisted.

Not too new, experienced just enough with the way the world had been before to learn its rules and customs, the safety of day and the need to sleep away the night, to be taken off guard when the rules warped themselves into knots and the customs vanished as quickly as they'd been taught to her.

She can't remember what it's like to not have mud caked beneath the surface of her nails, to not nearly always find a tangle in her hair when she brushes it back, to never have known hunger or to have spent nights curled up in anything but fear.

It's been a long time since the surface was safe, when people could bathe themselves in sunlight instead of enjoying the glimpses of it that shine randomly through the clouds.

It's rarer that those sun beams trickle though the higher cave systems or looser patches of soil.

There was a time, before, when living underground was more dangerous by far than the grassy hilltops and wooded forests of the ground above.

In part, the larger amounts of monsters, desperate and cunning, make living in the caverns and ravines a challenging feat, but they're nothing compared to the main menace of the sky.

Maybe a dragon can chew through half a mountain, but it's not as likely to bother trying.

Not when it can scavenge from above, scooping up unlucky people and creatures in its gargantuan jaws before it mangles their bodies, swallowing some whole and tearing off the limbs of others.

Given the two choices, hiding in caves sounds a lot safer.

Creepers can be killed, spiders slain, zombies lit on fire and left to burn... but nobody can kill a dragon.

The only people who did, an entire Order of heroes, vanished once the new one returned. Ran away, hid themselves, died, became another travelling band of heroes- the stories and rumors are endless, jumbled and nonsensical even within their own context.

Likewise, no one knows for sure what the dragon is, the mate, the spawn, or maybe the kin of the original slain beast, beyond deadly.

Jesse doesn't worry about heroes, where they've gone, or dragons and where they've come from.

Jesse just worries about herself, about staying alive and surviving the world around her, surviving while she refuses to be too cruel, takes in a piglet that another creature or person would either ignore or scoop up for a feast.

She worries about the people close to her, her friends close and those newly made, and she worries for people she's never met, worries about those straying too far from their shelters and settlements and worries about the crueler people that try and prey on people like her for resources.

(She wonders when that qualified as being a hero, worrying.)

Much of Jesse is selfish, wanting for her safety and the safety of her friends above any quest, and the most self-centered parts of her see no problem with leaving the world as it is, as it has grown to be. It's the world she knows, the one she has adapted to and survived for so long, the one she and her friends survived in spite of.

But no part of her is selfish enough to doom those friends, to doom her home, in fear of the unknown when they will not survive much longer anyway.

The idea of going back to a world of dependable sunlight, of steady cities filled with content people capable of fending off small hordes of monsters rather than waves, scares her, the painted paradise she faintly remembers and still hears so much about as foreign to her as the End, beats the idea of certain death.

The command block grows stronger with more time that passes, more unstable and damaging to the world around it, and someone needs to stop it before they're all killed.

Why her?

Jesse doesn't know, except that she was at either the best or worst place at the right or wrong time.

The world can crumble and society can trudge on, but at this point, she's not even sure why she was surprised that the trading meeting, meant to help all of the towns and settlements involved, ended horribly, a wave of creepers taking everyone by surprise.

She'd then gone on to meet two members of the Order, two that had been travelling together helping people.

Two people she hadn't even known for sure really existed outside of exaggeration and nostalgia, and suddenly they needed her help, needed her friends.

Because the dragon that appeared wasn't a new one; it's the old one that was killed, the one that was slain. The Order simply hadn't killed it, and instead had cheated and lied, used the 'command block' against it.

That block, as it turns out, is the reason for all their troubles, alongside one of the two members she met, Ivor.

He'd stolen the block to get revenge, wanted to use it to reveal his friends, and had instead tried to destroy it in a panic when the block became too tempting, tried to control him instead.

Instead of destroying it, he destroyed any sense of security Jesse had known and ruined their world in the eyes of many, accidentally made the command block twist the rules of their world and the creatures around them. Night became long, daylight random, and a dragon was unleashed on the unsuspecting people who slept soundly for the last time in their lives.

Can she hold that against him, the man who ruined the paradise others had known and twisted it by accident into the landscape she's so familiar with, when she's about to try and do the same as him?

Someone needs to destroy it.

And after weeks of travel, after weeks of keeping her friends together by hardly more than a few threads and all the hope she can muster, that someone is Jesse and she needs to do it now.

It's an unstable force, a corrupted device and power, and in the past few weeks withers have begun to spawn where people had grown used to finding safe havens.

Withers spawning underground meant cities blown to bits, shelters exploded, and entire systems of people exposed to the world above and the monster lurking in the skies, another twisting of their homes and comforts.

She can almost hear Lukas pacing back in their shelter, wearing the fabric of one of his sleeves thin as he worries about his friends.

One of the settlements ransacked was their home, and glorified raiders though the Ocelots may have been, Jesse hopes they’re okay. Losing friends is awful, and all she can think of is Petra turning more into a shell of herself, being eroded by the twisted form of wither infecting her as she huddles inside a cave. Axel will protect her, and Petra will try her best, but Jesse doesn’t know what can save them if they’re exposed to a dragon.

The Far Lands seem safer than the world outside.

The enchanted sword in her hand is the closest thing to safety she's had, outside of group hugs and cuddles between friends in the few moments they get rest, and there's a fury burning in her lungs as she stares at the thick of the mess, the maze, the rapidly shifting glowing ball of light that holds their world's darkest entity.

She's going to strike the command block, and, afterwards, she's going to destroy the shards.


	23. Children AU

The end of the world is a terrible occurrence, to put it lightly.

It would be awful even if they were all at their best of abilities with the fullest preparation possible, knowing every step they need to take and how to accomplish each.

In true terrible, awful, disastrous end of the world fashion, they know little about either.

So far, the main step has been to stay alive, and now their best bet sounds like finding Soren, someone Gabriel hasn't seen or heard from in years. The team of adventurers consists of an ill has-been warrior, a shaken redstone engineer, a griefer with the best of intentions and craziest of plans, and a handful of children.

The three supposedly capable adults are also all liars, frauds, and likely haven't trained for anything of this caliber since they 'defeated' the dragon. Even Gabriel's been lax with his own training, over time, used to unearned fanfare and adoration, and Axel's story about retrieving Magnus involved finding where the griefer had been hiding away, locked up in one of his own towers with only his own paranoia and the sounds of destruction to accompany him.

And Ellegaard's been through much today, her city stripped to bedrock and her people consumed, her dedicated work erased in a few chaotic minutes.

All to a monster Ivor created.

And really, the monster Ivor's become is their fault too. Ivor may not have had the heart to leave a bunch of children entirely unprotected, guiding them to the rail systems before disappearing, but he had no problem abandoning a stadium, a city, full of innocents to save his own hide before.

Gods know where he is now, as absent as Soren and with as many potential answers.

Gabriel wishes he'd only struggled with a cold, wishes he was as easily recovering as he's claimed. His arm throbs, his chest heaving with more pained breaths than not, and merely existing carries a quiet ache caused by more than just regret.

The decision to rest for the night, officially made by Jesse but quietly enforced by the adults to not risk moving the children through the dense forest in almost total darkness, is a blessing for their safety and the chance to truly rest and a curse for the paranoia it causes him, the way he can feel his body dying and slowing with every passing minute while he listens to hear if the monster will hunt them down.

It's just as well that Magnus sits beside Gabriel, legs crossing underneath him as he rests his back against an empty bookshelf, looking as happy with Gabriel as he is with the idea of the monster finding them.

(He's not sure why Magnus is so sour, not when staying for the night was his idea.)

"Yes, Magnus?" The smile bleeds through his words, for better or worse, sounding as he knows it looks; tired and weary, if warm.

"Just how bad is whatever you got?" Magnus's voice is quiet, just loud enough to be heard between them without bothering any of the children resting in the nearby beds. It doesn't change how scratchy his voice is, or how sharp the look he gives Gabriel turns, a slowly cooling cigarette hanging between his fingers while his other hand picks at curling grout between the stone bricks. "You look like crap, you don't sound much better, and I'm not believing the cold story. And you sent _kids_ after us."

"In fairness, they all left to find you long before I managed to make it here myself." The attempted amusement is short and goes as well as most of Gabriel's recent endeavors, one hand rubbing at his temple as he sighs. "I tried to save as many people as I could, Magnus, and I wasn't going to leave those children to die just so I could play the hero."

"I know you wouldn't." There's an undue faith in him, in that statement, and it's just as well that Magnus doesn't seem to know how to follow it either.

Ellegaard, however, apparently does, not as asleep or unaware as Gabriel though she was from where she's resting against the wall. None of them are resting in beds, not having enough material left over for it in their new or old supplies, and not willing to let terrified, exhausted children sleep on stone.

"So you sent them to play the heroes? To travel through the nether to find us?"

"It beat certain death. I was hoping they would wait for me, but I had no idea if I would live through it."

Neither of them are expecting it when Magnus joins in on his defense, and it's likely Magnus isn't expecting it either. It's never been hard for him, to pick a side for the sake of arguing, and Gabriel appreciates the help regardless.

(It allows him to try and keep the room from spinning and dragging his vision with it.)

"Those kids found you and made it through your city alright, didn't they?"

"Whose side are you on?" Ellegaard's attentions shift to Magnus and Gabriel remembers exactly why letting the two of them argue, even if it benefits him in the immediate sense, is a bad idea.

"Mine." There's a glint of teeth, sharp and bright in the moonlight trickling in above Lukas's admittedly impressive fortifications. "You know, the one that's trying to figure out why a bunch of kids are trying to save the world and why Gabe's letting them."

"That's what I've been trying to understand." Ellegaard doesn't yell, because that would awake the nearby children or attract the attention of monsters, but she comes the closest she can to it while whispering.

Gabriel tries to push down his concern as one of the bundled up bodies in the nearest bed, Jesse's, shifts.

"No, you're being hissy because you didn't really believe those kids until your city was being torn apart and people were already dying. It didn't take me that long to get the picture, and there wasn't even a monster headed my way."

"So you're proud of being gullible enough to believe a child?"

"Hey, he knew where our nether portals were, and nobody knows that besides us. That's not something a kid could just guess." Gabriel attempts to add something to the conversation, only to end up cut off as Magnus jabs a finger at Ellegaard, eyes narrowing. "They brought you his freaking amulet and you didn't believe them."

"Whether I believed them or not, finishing the command block was important. It would allow us to do so much, including destroy a monster made by a command block."

(That's an uncomfortably familiar sentiment, how much power a command block could bring, and Gabriel wonders if Magnus's tensed shoulders don't have something to do with how much she sounds like Soren.)

It's in all of their interests if he brings this to a close.

"The truth is, you're right. We're horribly outmatched, I'm certainly not close to being at full strength, and I fear I'm only going to get worse. Those children may be the best chance we have at getting to Soren, and they're still only children. They're looking to us, to me and to both of you, for guidance, for answers." The lack of responses is also a lack of argument, Ellegaard staring down at her boots while Magnus inspects the cracks, both wooden and stone, in the bookshelf he leans on and the wall it’s encased in. "I _need_ you two. Please. I need you to work with me, with each other, and if not for our sake, then for theirs. They're just _children_ , and they've been more mature."

"When you put it like that..." Magnus rubs the side of his neck, his other hand rolling the dead cigarette between his fingers, and Ellegaard's half smile is as sheepish as his own.

"Alright, Gabriel."

"When did you get so good at big, inspiring speeches, anyway?" Gabriel bites down a groan as Magnus nudges his shoulder, choosing to chuckle instead as he grins.

(It's close enough to gritting his teeth when it's this late and he's this tired.)

"Years of practice."


	24. Fusion AU

Jesse hasn't spent much time outside of fusions during this adventure.

(Adventure isn't the best word for it, though.

Nightmare?

Disaster?

Armageddon?

Jesse wouldn't normally go with the last word, but Lukas has a different, more extensive and poetic vocabulary, and they both like the suggestion.)

Fusions require cooperation and are best done when the involved people aren't stressed out of their minds and ready to hide in the dirt forever, but there's enough trust between them that they can manage even during the end of the world.

There's a comfort in that.

Fusions are also almost necessary at this point, capable of doing more than one or two people by themselves, able to run faster, carry more, and do more damage.

Jesse knows some of the worse things that could be said of that, that the group is too weak to function on their own and needs to fuse, that Jesse must need to fuse to be useful since Jesse's been the one doing the most fusing, but there's also the fact that Jesse might just be one of the only things holding the group together.

That's not meant to be bragging, because it's exhausting and not fun in any way, and it does make things harder sometimes, when Jesse has to pull out of a fusion to stop more fighting or make a decision not meant for the others.

Not that they wouldn't be capable, or that fusions couldn't still get the job done, but sometimes it's stuff like the F-Bomb, deadly and dangerous, and Jesse refuses to let anyone else throw themselves in harm's way. Not everyone agrees with that idea, but, well, fusion is usually at least a two way street.

Neither Axel or Olivia would try to keep Jesse in a fusion, make it a trap instead of an experience or make their fusions unstable, and so it only really takes Jesse's refusal.

Maybe they want to help, but Jesse would never let them run into danger if there's a way around it.

Jesse survives the Formidi-Bomb, anyhow, even if the Witherstorm depressingly does too, and the following group hug is tight and relieved enough that Jesse's surprised a fusion doesn't happen then and there.

It gets significantly less joyful once Ellegaard dies.

(Soren tries to get her to fuse with him then and there, insistent that fusing would increase her chances of surviving, but Ellegaard refuses to let him risk himself, giving the same refusal to Magnus and Gabriel afterwards.

She says something about wanting to die as who she is at her core, as a real hero for once, and while that might cover not wanting to kill her friends and their fusions with her injuries, there's more to the statement that gets the Order members to stop arguing, to watch quietly as her breathing shudders, chest heaving one last time, before she goes limp.)

There's yelling and fighting after that, after they try to move on only for the storm, the _storms_ , to rise and shriek and destroy what Ellegaard died for.

That makes fusion both desirable and the last thing Jesse needs, because hiding away, becoming _more_ , sound perfect and also too much like cowering when there's things Jesse has to argue for, has to think over. Arguing with Soren one on one, pushing against his fury, instead of becoming a different person feels like the right thing to do.

Just like going out in the snow, both to comfort Reuben and figure out where to go next, feels right when done alone.

Jesse wants some alone time in general, to process how Ellegaard's death is on Jesse's hands, the same as the trauma of all the people they couldn't save, how Gabriel's condition is only getting worse and Petra's memory of anything to with all of them is entirely gone is also entirely Jesse's fault.

Until Jesse runs into Lukas, at least, bright eyed and worrying his horse's reins between his fingers as he glances between the world outside, a flurry of slowly falling snow and quickly escalating mayhem, and the rest of the group huddled within the cave.

The long and the short of it is that he wants to go after the Ocelots, Petra's description too close to them for it to be anybody else, and he wants to go after them, to find them.

Jesse can't blame him for that and doesn't. Lukas, despite his best efforts and all the help he's given them, has been the outsider, blamed at first for losing Petra and then slowly accepted, with guarded looks and more of a weary agreement to let things lie from Axel than a warming up to.

There's probably also something to be said for how, for all their fusing, none of them have fused with Lukas. They haven't had the history with him that they've had with each other, used to him being a rival and looking down on them and what they do. It can be hard to open up to somebody like that, especially someone they used to compete with and definitely during the end of the world, and fusion requires that kind of bond.

Every fusion has been a reminder that Lukas isn't part of the group, not really part of the team, and it's a reminder of the people he has fused with, the friends he thought he lost until now.

Jesse won't try to hold any of that against him. When none of them know what to do next, at least Lukas has an idea, a plan.

He wants to be with his friends and make sure they're okay.

Those friends might be people Jesse has never gotten along with, but Jesse's not petty enough for that, not now when everything's gone wrong and everyone's so tired.

The hug is short but warm, and understood by both to likely be the last they'll see each other in a while, if not the last time altogether.

Except that when Jesse's eyes open, Lukas isn't there, the cave is considerably more cramped than they would like, and they're stumbling into the snow before they realize they'd even begun to move.

Strike that.

Jesse knows exactly where Lukas is, because he's where Jesse is. He's what Jesse is now, _who_ they are.

An odd time to fuse, maybe, but Jesse's sense of being is melting quickly into Lukas's own and the wonder of existing at all, of being whoever they are. A small chuckle, made more out of surprise than humor, bubbles its way out their throat as they clutch at their hair, one hand going there while the other covers their mouth.

Others, actually. There's a third arm, as lanky as the other two, the hand attached to it shifting quickly to busy itself with prodding at their clothing and the rest of their body.

The lock of hair they manage to grab, pulling into view, is curly, looping between their fingers and easily tugged at by the wind. The bright and pale blond, almost more silver than Lukas's nearly golden hair, stands out well against the dark clouds, rumbling in the distance with thunder, heavy snow, and the screams of a monster.

They would have thought their hair would be dirty blond, a mix of Lukas's hair color and Jesse's brown.

There's another comfort in realizing they'd both already wondered what their fusion what look like, and that they'd both come to the same conclusion on at least a few details.

Being proven wrong by the reality doesn't bother them at all, not any more than it's pleasantly surprising.

It doesn't take long to figure out there are two tongues inside their mouth, lined with smooth teeth that grow sharper the further back they are, or that they now have a long scarf, useful against the current weather and curled around their neck, the flesh there oddly icy. They're tall, though there are far taller fusions out there; this is just one that gives both of them a chance to be at eye level with Axel, if maybe a bit lankier.

They're both startled and not shocked at all when Reuben nudges their leg, tilting his head as he looks up at them.

They'd both forgotten he was there and never stopped thinking about it, and their attention easily shifts to him, his skin oddly warm as they scratch behind both his ears.

Maybe that's them, then?

Their body that's cold, instead of his being toasty, or maybe it has something to do with the environment they fused in, or how they've never fused before.

Another chuckle, this one filled with more warmth, escapes them as Reuben leans into their touch after stiffening for a moment, and there's something to be said for how he'll take attention, even if it's cold. They don't mind crouching more, getting onto their knees even as snow clings to the worn kneecaps of their jeans, to better let him get comfortable with them, to know they don't mind being there for him.

The amusement dies then and there as they're reminded of where they are, who they are, the soft crunch of feet trudging through the snow behind them having them spin around as they draw themselves to their full height again.

There's panic and considerably surprise then, protests about how they don't want to keep Lukas from leaving, or force Jesse to go with, dying on their tongues as they freeze up.

It's just Axel and Olivia, but it's also the end of the world and they're far more Jesse's friends than they are Lukas's.

"Hey, if you want to go, then get. But give Jesse back first." Axel's voice is worn, as defeated and tired as the flat looks he levels at them, and they don't miss the way his jaw clenches or how his fingers curl into fists.

Neither does Olivia, if her tugging on the elbow of his sleeve and hissing back at him is any indication.

"Axel, you know that's not how it works."

Whether that's how it works normally or not, it's enough in this case, and he gets what he asked for.

It may be the shock and panic of being caught, of being viewed as a trap, or it may be the faint but steadily growing argument, Ivor and Soren sniping at each other with hardly a pause between words, which is equally startling, but whatever's the reason, they unfuse as quickly as they came into existence, Lukas and Jesse both staggering into the snow as they pull away from each other.


	25. Ghost Hunters AU

For most people, checking out an abandoned house rumored to be the home of a string of serial killers wouldn't be at the top of their to-do list.

It probably wouldn't be in the top twenty of their would-like-to-do list. Or the top fifty. Or top one hundred.

Realistically, it probably wouldn't be on there at all.

And anybody who would like something like that probably would only be less and less interested upon learning that that kind of thing requires a lot of digging around, official investigation, and making sure it's okay to enter the house and that nobody's trespassing.

The kind of spooky midnight dares and dumb drunken trips into people's creepy empty homes enjoyed by idiots, sober and not, isn't exactly seen as a great thing in their field.

Or legal.

Because it's not.

And Axel loves what they do, loves the reactions people have when they hear paranormal investigators and think ghost hunters, but he's good with not breaking the law or getting arrested when they have totally legal ways of getting into spooky places and recording creepy stuff.

(The best houses tend to be the ones recommended by the police, because not even they know what's causing the weird temperature drops, moaning in the walls, and/or lights flickering, and getting recommendations from them off the bat means quickly taking care of the permission issue and/or contacting the rightful landowners.)

All the same, as much as he loves the tacky, gimmicky, typical side of their job and what people jump to?

There's no way they're finding anything concrete at this place, because it's so over the top Axel's half convinced it's a really good prank the police station has been in on for a few decades.

It looks like a glorified haunted mansion made to scare trick-or-treaters, which is impressive because it only makes it that much more out of place in early April. It's decrepit without being condemned, teetering between nasty and maybe haunted with the amount of grime, mold, and naturally dark architecture.

There's a dark, sordid history, in that there's not really one and that there aren't actually any public records about the home's previous owners, nothing beyond urban legends and midnight sightings of flickering lights, weird sounds, and horrifying visions.

All it's missing is its own thundercloud and dramatic lightning.

No matter what they do or don't find, people won't take them seriously about it, not the public, not people in their field, and probably not even crazy internet people, because it seems like the perfect hoax.

It's guaranteed to be fun, though, because it also reeks of potential for a fun spooky night, interesting investigation, and plenty of ways to creep Lukas out.

Lukas, who's joining them tonight because Jesse has a weird idea of what counts as a date and a fun night out, and who maybe doesn't realize as much as the rest of them just how not high up on the fun-things-to-do-all-night list ghost searching is for most people.

Still, bringing him along might not be the worst idea ever, because Lukas treating it like a joke is both belittling and kind of fun when they haven't actually gotten started yet with anything.

The setup is kind of stereotypical too, the four of them huddled around the kitchen table with hardly any lighting and their recorder resting on the table.

(Supposedly where their victim, an unnamed man around their age, died of poisoning over twenty years ago.

If Axel was restless and murdered, the kitchen he died in would be as good a place as any to haunt, though the stability of the table itself is questionable. That's why most of their equipment's set up on a nearby stand brought in by them, strong and clean and stark against the cobweb covered, cockroach infested room.)

"Is there anybody that wants to speak to us?"

Lukas snorts from his seat, grinning widely at Jesse's glare.

"The mad house?"

The recorder clicks as Olivia taps at one of its buttons, shifting it away before Jesse can grab it while she raises an eyebrow at Lukas.

"Nobody here needs to go to an asylum." Her flat expression softens, lips turning up in a smile as she glances over at where Axel is, headphones that are connected to the recorder resting on his head, only one half actually covering his ear. "Not even Axel."

"Hey!" He shrugs, tapping his fingers against his thigh as he smiles back. "Let's be real, though, counseling probably wouldn't be a bad idea for any of us. Or anybody."

"Mental health's important." Jesse's glare and frown shift into a smile as she nods, brushing some of her hair behind one of her ears as she rolls her eyes at them. "We can focus on catching up with our therapists in the morning. Right now, we have ghosts to find."

One ghost, technically, but there could be any number lurking in a house that supposedly once belonged to uncaught serial killers.

"Or document."

"Or get in contact with at all." Petra looks up from where she's standing by the stand, fingers curled around one of the cameras they have set up.

"And put to rest."

"I get it, I get it." Jesse shifts, Lukas laughing quietly as there’s a light thump and he winces. Axel can't say he blames him, not when he knows just how well Jesse can kick somebody and how much a table won’t get in her way or act as the protection it should. "It would be easier if somebody wasn't screwing up the investigation."

"Hey, we didn't ask you to bring your date along." Axel grins, and he thinks he does a decent job covering up any irritation as added enjoyment of the way Jesse stiffens, pouting at him.

"He's not my date." Her tone's softer, posture more relaxed as she glances back at Lukas, and her voice is somewhere between chiding and trying not to laugh. "But if you don't want us to kick you out until we're done, you have to let us do our thing."

"You got it." Olivia doesn't bother to hide how she rolls her eyes at Lukas's thumbs up, and Axel does the same. Their flirting's somewhere between adorable and rom-com levels of gag-worthy. "Best behavior."

"Let's try and take it seriously this time, alright?" Jesse rests an elbow on top of her chair as she twists in her seat to get a better look at Petra. "How's the equipment looking?"

"The equipment's fine. I just don't know what kind of footage you're expecting to get out of a place like this." Petra's shoes squeak against the tile floor as she lets go of the camera and takes a step closer to where Jesse's sitting, her elbow resting on their stand as she smirks at Jesse. "It's not like you're making a show."

There's a history of light-hearted bickering and joking behind that statement, and Jesse's eyes are half lidded as she frowns, looking entirely unimpressed as she turns back to the rest of them.

"We're not making a show; we're not sellouts. The more documentation and evidence we have, the better."

"We get it, we get it."

Axel gets the feeling Jesse would probably like a show as much as the rest of them would, if she wasn't arguing for the sake of making a point.

Beyond some more light bickering and offhand teasing from there, though, it goes smoothly. Smoothly as it ever does for them, most of their questions going unanswered or replied to with blips of static.

"What's your name?" It's a repeat question, Jesse's voice calm even as her gaze darts around the dimly lit room. They're nearly entirely in the dark, except for the low light emitted by some of their devices and the moonlight streaming through the one slightly crooked window.

They don't get anything this time, not even static, and Jesse pauses mid-word, whatever question she was going to follow it up with ignored in favor of staring at Lukas.

The rest of them are doing the same, the tapping of rocks against the floor almost identical to what he was doing earlier to pass the time, before they set up.

"Lukas, come on, knock it off." Lukas is on Axel's side, as much as he is Jesse's, and maybe it's the poor lighting, but his hands don't seem to be moving. None of him does, Lukas as frozen up as the rest of them as his brow furrows. "I'm glad you want to be here, but you have to let us work."

"Jesse?" Olivia and Axel glances at each other, Jesse not even bothering to do that as she huffs, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"Yeah?"

"It's not him."

Petra says something that might be a word or might just be noise, and for a second Axel thinks the camera went off and that someone messed with their settings, the flash bright and startling.

The flash doesn't go away though, and the light happens to be hovering above the table.

In the middle of the room, above all of them, and not several feet away where the camera's almost slipping between Petra's fingers.

It might not matter, though a faint part of Axel hopes she doesn't drop it so they don't have to buy another new camera, because they’ve gone through enough in the past month and money isn’t tight but it’s not loose either.

He just doesn't think filming this will help them any.

Whatever footage or recordings they get of this are just going to make people think they're faking it even more.

The creature in front of them isn't just annoyingly bright, but lanky, dressed in clothes somewhere between business and casual, the front of his suit stained a dark red while his jaws hang open, teeth sharp and dark in contrast to the rest of him.

He, if this is the guy that died by poisoning and not someone else, looks like a prop.

In this guy's defense, not even most Halloween props look so ready to commit brutal, lightning fast murder.

He's somewhere between the kitschy, stereotypical ghost shown on a kids' show and an abomination lurking in both the depths of hell and the corner of nightmares, humanoid in appearance and clearly wrong, not meant to look anything at all.

His hair is long, greasy and thick and floating behind him, his beard looking raggedy and matted in contrast.

His fingers are thin, at some parts nothing but bone and at others looking like exposed, floating muscle, the rest of his form a similar patchwork of transparent skin and parts of what could have been human.

It's a body, an entity, not meant for this realm, this place, one that's clawed its way here and dug its nails in to keep from being dragged to whatever lays beyond.

(Axel's bet's on reincarnation, Jesse believes in some kind of final resting place that's like happy limbo, Olivia's fairly sure it's some kind of heaven, and Petra's bet is on more of a Hades's underground type deal. Whatever the answer really is, this person clearly doesn't want to go there yet and hasn't tried at all to move on.

Or, worse, he has and he’s been spat back here.)

His jaw opens, eyes cold and unmoving, still like most of his floating body, and the rasp he gives doesn’t sound like noise meant to be made by any creature.

 “Ivor.” Axel’s not sure if it’s meant to be a word he can’t hear clearly, one he doesn’t know, or just a name, but the next two are a lot easier to understand, deeper and guttural as his claw like fingers bend, the tips nothing more than pointed bone. "Get out."


	26. Youtuber AU

Making videos can pay off well and be a lot of fun in the long run.

It's nice to know that other people enjoy what they make and enjoy their antics, and it's nice to feel appreciated for the work that does go into their content, but that means there is some downright deplorable work leading up to that recognition.

Their work can't be validated if there isn't any to begin with, and Olivia knows exactly why she's the one stuck doing the editing.

It's boring, it's tedious, it requires patience that only she's willing to have and use, and her sense of effects may not be as flashy as Axel's, but it's still sharp and well-paced enough to be enjoyable.

And Olivia's always been the responsible one, so why break tradition now?

She doesn't edit all their videos, because that would leave her little time to make her own, or eat, or sleep, or live her life beyond video making.

All the same, they're lucky enough to make enough off of what they enjoy doing to make a living, so she's fine with editing the bulk of what they produce in the office.

Her redstone tutorials don't require too much anyhow, Jesse's videos are more like pet vlogs and inspirational Q&As most the time that require nearly nothing besides a cute title card, and Axel's gaming stuff is laid back enough unless he tries to be a jerk and ask her in the footage to do something over the top in editing.

It's a bit like when they used to all share an apartment, but the office feels roomier and this way there's a lot less arguing and bickering at odd hours of the night over who gets to use the bath.

Bickering still happens, but at least it's usually when the sun's out and it tends to be a lot more fun than late grumpy arguing over bathing.

"And now we have a wild Jesse, nesting in her natural habitat as she hoards stacks of paper."

Olivia does her best to not be too obvious as she peeks over her screen, focus switching from the current work in progress to whatever Axel's trying to do now, more slinging himself against his chair than sitting in it as he shifts closer to Jesse, camera in his free hand while his other one keeps him from toppling over altogether.

"A curious creature. Not even Jesse experts know why she does this, though the popular theory among professionals is that it's either a stress response or an attempt to remind herself of her dorky mate."

There's a brief but sudden desire to snicker clawing its way at her throat, passed off as a poor cough as she grins.

It might be the jab about Lukas or it might be the goofy documentary voice Axel's doing, both getting Jesse to look up from her mound of paperwork and half-baked jotted down ideas, but either way, it's great.

Jesse's response, a sound that's a mishmash of a squeak, a hiss, and a croaky roar, gets Olivia's coughing to turn into full on laughter, a bark escaping her before she can think to hold it back.

And after that, there's not much point in trying to stay quiet.

So Olivia doesn't bother, instead enjoying a good, long laugh while Jesse bats at Axel's arm, trying to get at the camera as he pulls it away from her and stops filming.

Jesse doesn't try long, sinking into her chair as she pouts up at Axel, waiting for his laughter to stop.

It takes a bit longer to die down than Olivia's, both of them grinning widely at Jesse.

"You're not uploading that."

"I'm totally uploading that, and the editing is gonna rock."

Jesse picks up one of the several colored pens resting by her keyboard, scribbling random lines onto the corner of one of the sheets of scrap paper. For as dreadfully mopey as she looks, there's a small smile slowly forming, her shoulders relaxing and her other fingers no longer furiously drumming against her desk, and her tone is openly curious as she glances back up at Axel.

"What kind of editing would you have to even do?"

"Dramatic lighting, maybe some animal sounds in the background, and a real roar at the end." Axel shrugs, free hand absently flicking at one of the springy desk toys Nell gave Jesse a while back. "Or something like a kitten mew. Maybe I'll just leave that part as it is, because you did a really good job being adorable."

Jesse grins, wide and too large, as sweet as the thick syrupy voice she uses next.

"It's a gift."

"No kidding. Seriously, why don't you leave the worrying over paper to Lukas?" Lukas's videos range from writing advice to baking videos, and Jesse seems to have the elements of both today, a plate of cookies baked by Lukas resting under her computer monitor while the paper not filled with official looking form questions has the same swirling pattern as Lukas's rough draft sheets. "You didn't steal any of this from him, did you?"

"Not this time." Jesse's smile is cheeky, wide and toothy as she picks up a handful of pages and straightens them out against the desk, a corner of the pages managing to dog ear itself in the corner of her keyboard. "It was a gift, he gave it me."

Axel and Olivia share a glance before nodding, sounding entirely smug as they both speak.

"Nesting material."

Olivia has a monitor to hide behind, but Axel isn't so lucky, tossed a face-full of already crumpled paper. It doesn't keep him from snickering as Jesse visibly pouts again, her lower lip sticking out as she gives an melodramatic mutter.

"You guys suck."

It doesn't deter the snickering or Olivia's own growing giggles any, and Jesse's only likely supporter happens to be wedged somewhat under Olivia's desk.

In Reuben's defense, he seems awful comfy, his head against her leg while he lies down.

He also happens to be getting bribes in ear scratchings, and doesn't seem too bothered by Jesse's current plight, either too sleepy to notice or more than used to their shenanigans by now to worry.

(Axel says it's like Jesse got a huge dog, but Olivia thinks Reuben's size is closer to a short but long pony. He's good at getting attention when he wants it, regardless of what exactly his size is like, because a pig resting its head against your knee, begging for an ear scratching or belly rub, is a hard force to ignore.)

Olivia shifts her other hand slowly, pressing a button on the camera she happens to have set up beside her computer, clearing her throat as she smirks.

Jesse's been conveniently too preoccupied having banter with Axel to notice how it's been pointed at her desk the entire time.

Frankly, she thinks Axel has too, which works well.

Olivia’s always happy to get to use her documentary voice, and she knows she looks as cocky as she sounds, chin resting on her interlocking fingers while her elbows relax against the smooth wood of her desk.

"Despite all attempts, there is no consoling the lone, mopey Jesse. The dejected Axel then absconds with the ultimate prize, swindling his prey of one plate of cookies."

There's a pause as Axel and Jesse both freeze, Axel cradling the stolen plate close to his chest, tipped enough to not let the cookies slide off, as Jesse's gaze darts from where her snacks were to where they now are.

"Axel!"

Oh yeah, they're going to have a lot of fun editing this. It'll make for a fun little behind the scenes video, if nothing else.


	27. Bonus Day: More Hybrids AU

Winter is like any other season in that it fades into preeminence, lasts for a few months, and fades back into waiting for the next year as easily as any other season.

That it shapes the world is not in itself different from the other seasons.

What makes it unique is _how_ it leaves its mark, how it affects the world and the creatures in it during the full blast of the season and the unpredictably chaotic midway shifting periods.

(Winter, in Lukas's past experience, doesn't melt into spring so much as it grapples for the power it's grown used to holding, the weather wildly switching between pleasantly warming days filled with gentle breezes and darker, howling days bursting with storms that border on blizzards. The hail pounds hard and the snowflakes grow heavy, just as the flowers rise in spite of the icy ground, as the sun burns through the thick, rolling mantle of clouds.)

Winter is cold and harsh and biting, stunningly beautiful in the way it's brutal.

It brings gorgeous silent nights, all the world still as the ground glistens faintly in the mix of moonlight and the shine of stars, hardly a sound to be heard save for the howling of distant wolves or the shaking of bare branches and pine needles in the wind.

It brings storms as thick as the clouds that herald in sheets of snow and ice, covering the ground and the homes that shelter the people curled up within.

It forces people together the way nature often does, by being uncaring and beautifully dangerous as it leaves them to huddle together, and it brings about festivals and feasts and lots of time curled up in front of fireplaces.

Those seem like constants for hybrids and non-hybrids alike, given his time pretending to be fully human and the time since as he adjusts to no longer hiding himself.

Lukas is sure he probably doesn't have the perfect quintessential hybrid experience of what winter is like, given that this has also been his first winter home since the portal disaster and his first winter as a member of the Order, but it seems like the others agree it's fairly standard.

There are still snowball fights, group cuddles, and plenty of gift giving.

Maybe the gifts are a little more grandiose, from faraway places and often gathered by their own hands as they explore and venture out to far off places in their world and others, and maybe the cuddling and warm embraces last longer, grateful and exhausted that they're all alive even if they're supposedly been safe at home for months now.

Maybe the snowball fights are wild and fast, as much as can be expected from a group of heroes who are also total dorks and not half bad fighters.

But he's not complaining. The playing is still fun, the cuddling still warm, and the gifts still entirely appreciated, if for nothing other than the thought and care that goes into either making or retrieving them.

And Lukas certainly isn't going to complain about the help he's gotten with adjusting, both to being home and how to deal with his instincts.

It’s part of why he’s bundled up in several fuzzy blankets, sharing each with everyone else on the couch.

They’re surprisingly good at managing to get several people comfortable on a single couch, though the generous size of the couch and how large each blanket is helps too. His tail keeps brushing against Olivia’s arm, though she seems too deep in sleep to care, Lukas knows his feet are at least tangle with both Jesse and Axel’s, and Jesse currently has her head buried in his chest, one of her ears occasionally twitching, her arms wrapped as comfortably around his middle as his are around hers.

He’s pretty lucky to have the friends he does.

His experience before the Witherstorm entirely consisted of hiding and suppressing everything that would've made him seem less human, and what he did during that time was hardly better, stuffing down what he could and ignoring the rest as best he could even as the others found out he was a hybrid too.

The portal adventures had him doing more of the same, with Lukas ignoring all of it to stay alive. A few exhausted purrs might have been seen as progress, but it wasn't exactly full acceptance either.

Actually letting his body be, not clipping his whiskers or hiding his ears, or forcing his tail to stay hidden in odd positions in his clothing, is nice.

It's also entirely new, now that they're in a stable environment with people constantly watching them and looking up to them, and so Lukas gets to deal with how to embrace every part of him while still being a functioning person.

Especially the parts he could almost entirely rid himself of, if temporarily.

His whiskers have mostly finished growing back, fluffing out on either side of his face. It's nice to not have to clip them, to brush off what was left as large freckles, and he thinks the fully grown whiskers look nice against the small smattering of actual freckles covering his cheeks.

Lukas _thinks_ they're either finished or close to being done growing, at least.

It's been years since he started clipping, pulling out the whiskers at first until he found out how painful that was and that clipping didn't hurt so much as leave him dizzy, but they haven't changed at all in the past few weeks, after months of steadily growing back.

(His eyesight's fine, but there's something embarrassing about how everything feels more right now that his whiskers have grown out and can sense things again. It's admittedly nice not to be so clumsy anymore, for safety during adventures and general comfort, even with the added bit of humiliation that he hadn't realized that his general gracelessness and chronic case of butterfingers was entirely his fault until talking to Ivor about the change in perception.

That his whiskers serve an added purpose is nice, as entirely inhuman as he knows they are.)

Having pants that actually accommodate his tail can be odd too, but it's plenty more comfortable and beats constantly worrying about spraining or breaking it if he sits down wrong.

Seasonal changes are their own beast to adjust to.

Winter is weird in its own right, and maybe he's unfairly blaming the season, but it's never been his favorite. Playing in the cold with friends, building huge forts out of packed snow, and getting each other gifts for when the warmed up indoors was nice, but winter tends to be crueler to hybrids.

Mammal ones, at least.

It makes them tired, slow and hungry, _lazy_ according to the nastier 'real' people.

It's worse for hybrids that nearly go into actual hibernation and easier for those that don't, but Lukas thinks it just straight up sucks for anyone trying to hide that they're a hybrid.

He had enough of a problem the rest of the year, when he was part of the Ocelots, starving himself and skipping meals for the sake of some stupid image, and winter made it worse because he was sluggish and cold and even hungrier.

(There's something very stupid about how an ocelot hybrid hid and hurt every part of himself for a group literally named 'the Ocelots', but that's its own problem.

It's tied into how they all were hurting, changing themselves for other people's liking.)

That's not a problem anymore, because he spent enough time actually starving in the portal network to be done with doing it by choice, and while he's more popular now than he ever was before he definitely doesn't have to worry about the Ocelot image, but some of the nastier fears and anxieties don't get the hint so easily.

Thankfully, the rest of the Order's as good as helping him with it as they are at making him feel better about his whiskers, in part through making it clear they're not judging and in part by doing the same.

Axel's the only hybrid who comes close to full on hibernation, napping on the couch most times if not asleep in his room on the days they don't have adventures or trips, but the others get in their added sleep too, and there's been plenty of hot cocoa and fresh cookies to spare since the first snowfall.

It makes sense that it's a lot easier to snuggle up on the couch and cuddle when there are other people there to cuddle with.

(It also helps that having several people curled up there means that they're already there and already armed with plenty of blankets if any of them happen to have less than pleasant dreams. The things they’ve been through leave plenty of scars, some more mental than physical. They’ve helped him with that too, and while he drifts between being happily asleep and groggily half aware, he’s more than ready to comfort them if their sleep gets interrupted too.)

There’s the gentle thrumming of snowflakes as they land against the windows and walls, sticking to what they can and the barrage of flurries not lightening up any.

How cold and nasty it looks out there emphasizes how warm and safe he feels.

It’s calming, and it lulls Lukas to sleep, lures a purr out of his throat, deep and long as he settles his head back against the arm rest, Jesse’s head tucked under his chin.


End file.
